Cousins are the Best
by Reese M
Summary: A collection of one-shots set in my Natasha Carter universe that tells the story of her releastion with Tony Stark, and perhaps a bit of Sharon Carter as well. This is an AU fic, the timeline is off to make it work, and it's a Carternelli fic to boot.
1. Chapter 1

A Rocky Start

With the nursery door open Peggy Carter could hear the cling clang of the doorbell sounding from downstairs shortly followed by Angie's voice calling out that she'd get it. She smiled warmly down at the infant she was currently dressing in a lacy navy blue dress and matching booties. They didn't normally dress Natasha in such things but today was special. Today Natasha would be officially theirs by law, so a fancy dress was in order for such a wonderful day. Later that afternoon they would change her into white satin and silk for her christening, but Peggy was partial to this dress, especially when she added the tiny red fedora Rose had brought along with some paperwork that needed Peggy's attention. Peggy had taken the holiday season off to spend with Angie, so no one at SHIELD outside of Howard and Rose knew about her new addison, not even her protege Nicholas. She would share the news soon, but for now she wanted to keep this a secret shared by just those she considered family.

"That," Peggy said as she finished dressing her daughter. "Will be Mr. Jarvis, here to pick us up and take us to the courthouse." Picking Natasha up she pressed a soft kiss to her hair and then settled her into the crook of her arm. "Are you ready for an exciting day my little darling?"

As she descended the stairs Peggy could hear the familiar voices of her girlfriend and Edwin Jarvis, as well as her godson's. Hearing Tony's voice was a pleasant surprise that made Peggy smile. It had been a few weeks since she'd seen Tony because he'd been traveling with Maria for the holidays, and she felt a sudden burst of excitement at the thought of spending time with him and introducing him to his new godsister. When she walked into the living room to join everyone Peggy could see the excitement of seeing one another mirrored in Tony's expression as his dark hazel eyes caught sight of her.

"Aunt Peggy!" Tony squealed excitedly, darting towards his godmother.

"Anthony." Jarvis called out a gentle warning upon seeing the babe in Peggy's arms.

Peggy smiled reassuringly, easily shifted Natasha to one arm before Tony collided with her legs. "It's alright Mr. Jarvis." She said gently, her free hand going down to rest on Tony's back as he pressed his tiny five year old face into her thigh. "Hello my sweet boy." The way Tony nuzzled his face into her let her know Maria must have left town again after returning him home, if she even bothered to bring him herself, which meant Tony was a bit affection starved. She rubbed his back, then ran her fingers through his hair before speaking up again. "Anthony, come sit with me. I have someone I'd like you to meet."

Tony reluctantly pulled away from his aunt and took her offered hand. He honestly didn't notice the baby in her arms until he was seated beside her on the sofa. The baby had a dress on so it must be a girl, which just further crinkled his nose.

"Anthony Stark, I'd like you to meet Natasha Carter." Peggy replied as she felt Angie slip into the seat beside her. "

"Carter?" Tony repeated. "That's your name Aunt Peggy."

Peggy smiled as she nodded. "It is, and now it's hers as well because I'm her mother."

Tony's dark hazel eyes went wide. "She's your baby?"

"She is." Peggy nodded, her eyes bright with happiness and pride.

"Aunt Angie's too?" Tony asked next, fully aware that his Aunt Peggy loved Angie the way Jarvis loved Ana. It was the kind of love he wanted to have when he was grown up.

Again Peggy nodded. "She's our daughter."

Dark hazel eyes that were once wide with surprise were now narrowed in contempt. How dare this baby come and take away his Aunt Peggy! Who did she think she was? He glared at the baby, the silly thing that just laid there in his Aunt Peggy's arms, arms that should be wrapped around him. Finally after several moments of scrutiny Tony shook his head. "No, I don't like her. Send her back."

"Send her back?" Peggy repeated, a little surprised by his response but only for a moment. Aside from Jarvis and Ana, who were restricted a bit by their professional roles with the Starks, Peggy and Angie were steady, open, and unlimited sources of affection and love for the boy. Peggy was about to try and reassure him that Natasha wouldn't change that, but Angie spoke up first.

"Hey Tony," Angie said gently from over Peggy's shoulder. "Did you know that I have four older brothers, and an older sister?" Tony's eyes went wide again and Angie smiled as she nodded. "Yeap, my Ma had six kids, and ya know what? She and my Pops, they loved each one of us so much. Ya know how?" She paused a moment as he shook his head. "When someone new comes into your life, like a new brother, or sister, or cousin, they don't take love away, they make love grow. Your Aunt Peg and me, we're not gonna love you less because we have Nattie to love too. We're just gonna have lots more love for everyone."

"Angie's right, sweetheart." Peggy reinforced. "I am always going to be your Aunt Peggy, and I am always going to love you and be there for you when you need me. And now, you'll have Nattie to love you too."

Actual surprise washed over Tony's face. "She's going to love me? Why?"

Peggy was going to maim Howard Stark one of these days. "Of course she's going to love you, Anthony. You're older than she is, she's going to look up to you, and she's going to love you because you are a marvelous person to love."

"You're her big cousin." Angie added with a nod of agreement. "She's gonna adore you, kid!"

Tony looked between his aunts for a few moments, seeing the truth of their words reflected in their eyes. He relaxed a bit and gave the baby another long look. Then he inched a little closer to his Aunt Peggy, and reached out a tentative hand. He gasped softly when the baby grabbed his finger and then he smiled. "Hi Nattie. I'm Tony."

Natasha cooed softly and Peggy smiled brightly. "See, she already loves you."

Angie chuckled softly as she watched Tony interacting with Natasha and then whispered into Peggy's ear. "I can't wait to see what kind of trouble those two get into."

"Lord have mercy on us all." Peggy chuckled.


	2. Chapter 2

Hiding Out

Director Peggy Carter had several phones in her office at SHIELD. The larger one was for general purposes but primarily for work, connecting her to the agents and other employees under her command. The red one was a direct line to the president. The small black one was a personal line, the number to which was only known to a select few, and used only in case of emergency. If Angie needed to call her at work for normal domestic reasons she would use the normal office number and be routed to Peggy through the switchboards and Rose. But if Angie needed to call her because she was ill or Natasha had been hurt, she would call the direct line. Which is why when the small black phone's tinny ring cut through the silence of Peggy's office, her heart dropped to her stomach, and her stomach to her feet.

"Angie?" Peggy said into the receiver before it was even fully pressed to her ear. Peggy relaxed for a split second when it was Howard's voice that replied, but only for a split second. "Calm down, Howard. I can't understand you. Deep, slow, breath. Good. Now say it again slowly and clearly if you please." Peggy listened and then jumped to her feet. "What the bloody hell do you mean Anthrony's missing?" Panic flooded through Peggy as she listened to Howard but unlike Howard who was frantic, she remained calm. "I'll find him, Howard."

In a faded brick brownstone in Brooklyn tiny bare feet hardly made a sound as Natasha Carter quietly made her way to the kitchen. When she makes it to the bottom of the stairs without stepping on a single squeaky step, she pauses to listen. She can hear the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel, but nothing else so she knows her Mama isn't in there so she decides to go through the living room to get to the kitchen. She pauses to listen again before pushing open the kitchen door in the dining room, no music, no rattling noises, Mama's not in there either. That meant she was either in the study working or the basement washing clothes. Slipping into the kitchen the little redhead set her plastic play shopping basket on the table and began to gather what she could to fill it with. At only five years old Natasha wasn't really big enough to get things out of the cabinets, not without pushing a kitchen chair into place that she could climb onto, but Mama would hear that for sure. So she had to settle for an apple and a banana from the bowl on the kitchen table, a couple of slices of bread and the jar of peanut butter left on the counter from breakfast, a bottle of Coke from the fridge, and some cold leftover sausage and peppers from last night's dinner. She even remembered to grab some take out utensils from the takeout drawer that every New Yorker had in their kitchens.

With her pilfered shopping stuffing into her little plastic basket Natasha made her way back up to her room. After carefully closing her bedroom door behind her she made her way over to her closet where she gently knocked three times and waited. The door was opened from the inside, revealing a tired looking ten year old Tony Stark. Natasha smiled as she held out her basket. "I didn't get caught at all, Tony."

Tony returned the little girl's smile as he accepted her basket of goodies. "Thanks Nattie. I'm starving. I didn't eat before I left."

"You're welcome." Natasha replied as she sank to the floor to sit cross legged as she watched Tony root around in the basket. Every morning after kissing her Mummy goodbye Natasha ran to the big window in the living room to watch Peggy get into her car and head off to work. She would stay in the window until she could no longer see Peggy's car and then dash off to wherever her Mama was so they could start their day. Only this morning was different because after her Mummy's car had disappeared from sight, Tony appeared across the street. Natasha got so excited at seeing him that she forgot that she wasn't allowed to open the front door alone, letting the boy inside without her Mama knowing he was there. She didn't understand what was happening, only that Tony looked sad and scared, so she nodded when he asked if he could go up to her room, and promised not to tell anyone he was there. "Hey Tony?"

"Hmm?" Tony replied as he ate one of the cold sausages.

"Are you going to live in my closet now?" Natasha asked. "I wouldn't mind, but it's really small and dark."

Tony shook his head. "No, Nattie, I'm not going to live in your closet. I just need a place to hide until I can figure out how to get to Jarvis and Ana in England."

At the mention of England Natasha's whole face lit up and she began to bounce on her butt in excitement. "We're going to England! We're gonna go and see Gran and Grandad! But first we're going to stay in a hotel and Mummy's going to show us London!"

Natasha's voice had raised a bit in her excitement which catch Angie's attention before she even noticed her daughter's bedroom door was closed, which was odd. Natasha didn't like having her door closed all the way. "Nattie?"

Both children's eyes went wide at the sound of Angie's voice. Tony closed the closet door while Natasha leapt to her bed just before her Mama came into the room.

"Nattie, who are you talking to, angel?" Angie asked, her blue-green eyes scanning the room carefully.

Natasha held up her ginger bear with his silly mustache, army greens, and bowler hat. "I was talking to Dum Dum Bear. I was tellin' him all about Mummy talking us to England, cause she's English, just like Winne the Pooh and Paddinton!"

Angie couldn't help but laugh gently as she moved across the room and perched herself on the edge of her daughter's bed. "Guess you're pretty excited, huh?" Reaching out she tickled her little girl's tummy. She loved the sound of Natasha's giggle. "Me too." She pulled Natasha to her and cuddled her close. "How about we…" The sound of the phone ringing cut Angie off. "Hold that thought." She told the little girl in her lap before kissing her temple and moving her back to the bed.

The upstairs phone was in her mothers' room so Natasha knew that's where her Mama would go to answer it. So she darted over to her closet door to check on Tony, and was startled to find him trying to brush away tears.

In her room Angie had pressed the phone to her ear with a cheerful greeting only to have her wife tell her that Tony was missing. "You'll find him, English, and Nattie's fine. She's hyper excited for our trip and tellin' her bears all about it. I will. Keep me updated, Peg. I love you."

Tony said he was ok, but it looked like he was crying. Mummy said that sometimes people cry when they're happy, and sometimes she cried when she was sad, hurt, frightened, or super tired. Maybe Tony was just tired. Going over to her bed she picked up Dum Dum Bear and her blankie and gave them to Tony and then kissed his temple the way her mothers did, and left him alone like he asked. When Natasha stepped out into the hallway she was scooped up into her mother's arms, startling her and making her squeak. "Mama!"

"Come on angel, you've been in your room playing by yourself all day. You can match socks while I fold the laundry, and then we'll start dinner." Angie said as she cuddled her little girl close. If it were Natasha missing Angie would be out of her mind. Peggy would be out there razing everything to the ground looking for her. For a moment, Angie actually wondered what Howard was doing.

It didn't take long for Angie to notice that something seemed off with Natasha. She seemed anxious and antsy about something, and Angie was starting to worry that Natasha was reacting to her own anxiety over Tony. Natasha could be attuned to her and Peggy's moods, and she really didn't want to stress her daughter out, so after they finished folding a bunch of towels, Angie turned the television on just in time for Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. With Natasha fully distracted Angie gathered up her basket of clean laundry and headed upstairs to put it away. As she climbed the stairs she wondered for a moment if maybe she should call Peggy for an update, but then sighed softly knowing that Peggy would call her when she could.

On her way to the linen closet at the end of the hall Angie suddenly stopped. Something a bit off had caught her attention as she passed the bathroom and she turned to look to see what it was. The toilet seat was up. Why on earth was the toilet seat up? It was Friday, their cleaning lady came every Wednesday, so it wasn't that the bathroom had been just cleaned. Plus Leisl would never leave the seat up. Everyone who lived in this house was a girl, with the exception of Darth Vader, Natasha's black Betta fish. The only time that toilet seat was ever lift up was when… Angie's head snapped towards Natasha's bedroom door, which she knew she'd left open, to find it closed again.

After dropping her basket into the chair in their room Angie picks up the phone and dials Peggy's personal line. There's no answer but Angie knows that Peggy's pager will alert her to the missed call and her wife will call her back as soon as she can. Then she picked a few select items from the basket to carry back to Natasha's room. Sure enough, just as the knob softly clicks and she begins to push the door open she hears a shuffle inside. Angie shakes her head as relief washes over her. When Peggy calls back Angie has returned to the kitchen and quickly picks up the wall mounted receiver. Peggy is quick to tell her that she's tracked Tony to Manhattan. "He ain't in Manhattan, English."

"What?" Comes Peggy's reply. "He's there? Is Tony with you?"

"I'm pretty sure he's hiding in Nattie's closet." Angie tells her wife and can instantly hear the relief in Peggy's exhaled breath.

"When did he get there? How did he get there? Why is he in her closet?" Peggy asked in rapid fire succession.

"Don't know yet." Angie replied. "He's still in the closet. I figured that if whatever happened with Howard was bad enough to actually make him run off, that's something only Aunt Peggy can fix."

"I'm on my way home." Peggy said firmly.

Once she arrived home Angie filled Peggy in on a few more details such as not being able to find the leftover Italian sausages she was planning on using in her spaghetti sauce and the missing bottle of Coke from the six pack they had just bought. Angie also told her about Natasha's odd behavior and how she'd thought she'd heard their daughter talking to someone, only to have the girl say she'd been talking to her toys. Peggy was gently shaking her head in disbelief as she crept silently towards her daughter's bedroom. She had been out of her mind with fright and worry all bloody day, only to find out her children were both safe and sound in her own bloody home playing hide and seek from them!

Pausing outside of Natasha's closed door, Peggy listened, and sure enough, not only did she hear her daughter's voice but Tony's as well. When she turned the doorknob the sound of bells made Peggy blink. Had they booby trapped the door? Stepping into her daughter's room Peggy found Natasha laying on the floor near her closet coloring in one of her favorite coloring books, a few stray crayons shattered near the closed closet door.

"Mummy!" Natasha cheered as she leapt to her feet and rushed to her mother to hug her.

Peggy couldn't help but smile as she returned her daughter's delighted hug. She allowed herself a moment to wonder how long this would last, the sheer and utter joy her child felt to see her each and every time she returned home from a long day of work. How long before squeals of delight turned to monotoned syllabus of disinterest and enthusiastic hugs turned into half hearted waves. The fact that she was actually rather cross with the child at the moment reminded Peggy that her little girl was growing up way too fast.

"Hello my darling." Peggy said as she returned her daughter's embrace.

"How come yous home early, Mummy?" Natasha asked, knowing that her mummy wasn't normally home until closer to dinner time. "Did you get all of your work done?"

"I didn't get to do much of my work today, darling." Peggy answered as she looked down at her little girl as Natasha released her and took a step back. "I spent all day looking for something very important and special, and I got to come home early because that very special and important thing is here."

It wasn't so much her mother's words that sent a flicker of panic through Natasha it was Peggy stepping towards her closet that made her dart over and press her back against the door. "No Mummy."

"No?" Peggy repeated, blinking her dark eyes in surprise. "Excuse me young lady, did you just tell me no?"

Natasha's panic was rising. She'd promised Tony she wouldn't tell, not even her moms. "Spiders."

"What?" Peggy replied, a bit startled.

"Spiders, Mummy." Natasha repeated. "There are spiders in there and you don't like spiders."

Peggy blinked again. Was her five year old seriously using her knowledge of her dislike of spiders to keep her from discovering Tony? Peggy wasn't sure if she should be angry or to laugh. "Natasha Elizabeth Carter, move away from the door." She said firmly and calmly. "Anthony Edward Stark, come out here right this instant, young man."

There was a long pause and then the sound of shuffling from within the closet before Tony's muffled voice spoke out softly. "It's alright Nattie."

Natasha frowned a bit but moved out of the way so Tony could come out and stand beside her.

Peggy stood there, arms crossed over her chest, looking as stern as she could for as long as she could before she said, "Come here, Anthony." She watched as the boy dropped his head as he approached and the moment he was within arms reach she was pulling him into her, wrapping her arms around him, and holding him tight. "Do you have any idea how worried and frightened you've had us all, Anthony?"

Tony was actually a little surprised by his godmother's reaction, having been expecting a reprimand rather than a hug, he was ridgely stiff in her embrace until he heard the emotion in her accented voice. The boy melted against his aunt, pressing his face into her abdomen as he tightened his arms around her. "I'm sorry Aunt Peggy. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Oh my sweet boy." Peggy said with a soft sigh before dropping a kiss to Tony's head. She held him a little longer and then finally stepped back from him, taking in his and Natasha's pouty faces. It would be so easy to let this all go and just revel in the fact that Tony was safe and sound, but she knew she couldn't do that. "Both of you, downstairs, now."

Angie was waiting in the living room when they entered and Tony found himself wrapped in another tight embrace. He could hear his aunt's softly whispered prayer of thanks that he was safe, and knowing that his Aunt Angie loved him enough to pray for him made he snuggle into her a bit more. Of course Aunt Angie didn't hesitate to end the embrace with several stinging swats to his backside before taking his face in her hands and scolding, "Don't you ever do anything like that again, do you hear me?"

Tony simply nodded, his dark hazel eyes glassy with tears he refused to shed, before being drawn back into her arms. He had scared his aunts and that was twisting him up inside.

"Anthony, you and I need to talk about what happened with your father, and how you handled it." Peggy said firmly once her wife let their nephew go. "But we'll do that after dinner, for right now go help your aunt in the kitchen and clean up whatever mess you made in Natasha's closet."

"Yes Aunt Peggy." Tony replied and was about to follow Angie out of the room but stopped and turned back to Peggy. "Please don't be mad at Nattie. I asked her not to tell, I said it would be ok, that we weren't doing something bad."

Peggy held out her hands to both children and walked them over to the sofa. She sat Tony beside her and Natasha on her lap. "I'm glad that the two of you have each other's backs. That's going to be one of your most valuable resources as you grow up and when you're older." Peggy paused for a moment to put a bit more firmness in her voice. "However, sneaking around and telling fibs, is not acceptable behavior. Your actions, even actions taken to protect one another, have consequences when those actions are against the rules." She focused her gaze on Tony, "Understand?" The boy sighed and replied with a small nod. "Good. Now, off you go, Anthony."

Once alone with her daughter Peggy looked her in the eyes, she knew her daughter well enough that it hadn't just been Tony asking her not to tell that kept the girl quite so she asked, "Why did you not tell Mama that Tony was here?"

"He was sad and scared and mad." Natasha answered. "Grown ups would'da made him madder, and he might've left."

Peggy blinked, and then fought of a proud little smile as to maintain her stern expression. Natasha knew Tony sometimes needed space and time alone before he could properly sort out his feelings, and she had been trying to give him that. "I'm very proud of you for taking care of Tony, Natasha."

"Really?" Natasha beamed. "Does that mean I'm not in trouble?"

"Did you or did you not do a lot of fibbing today?" Peggy asked in response. "You told Mama that you were talking to Dum Dum Bear when you were talking to Tony weren't you?"

Natasha deflated. "Yes."

"And you told me there were spiders in your closet when there were not spiders in your closet." Peggy continued.

Natasha sighed. "I'm sorry."

"You know better than to lie, Natasha Elizabeh." Peggy scolded firmly as she set her daughter on her feet. "Now, off to the corner young lady." She commanded with a pop to Natasha's bottom. "Do not move until I say so. Understood?" She watched her little girl nod her head as she walked across the room to the corner they normally sent her to when she was being punished. Then with a soft sigh she stood and walked over to the phone to call Howard. She would let him know Tony was safe and sound and staying with her for the weekend.

"We could just keep him." Angie said as she stepped up beside her wife after Peggy hung up the phone. "Howard and Maria wouldn't even notice."

"Maybe, maybe not." Peggy sighed. "But Edwin and Ana would, besides, I'm not sure we could handle those two little moppets being together all the time. I have a feeling those two working together could be dangerous."

"Probably, but only in the very best kind of way." Angie said with a laugh.

After ten minutes Peggy finally gave in. "Alright my darling, come here." Natasha ran over to her and she easily scooped her up. "No more fibs, young lady."

Natasha nodded. "I promise, Mummy. I won't fib for Tony anymore."

Somehow Peggy just knew that wasn't a promise Natasha would be able to keep.


	3. Chapter 3

Carter Connection

Natasha Carter is two years old and toddling after a couple of cavalier king charles spaniel puppies, one of which (despite her mother's protest) is hers, a gift from her grandfather. She is in her grandparents garden in Hampstead England, her mother's bright doe eyes watching her carefully around the puppies, when her grandmother Amanda turns to her mother and informs Peggy, "Michael and Abigail are expecting a child this spring." Peggy hasn't heard a word from Micheal since she asked him to leave her home shortly after her daughter's arrival, the day she asked him to either love her as she was or leave her alone. Clearly he'd made his choice. "That's wonderful, Mum. I'm happy for them." She replies to her mother, a slightly forced smile on her painted lips. Then she steps away from the elder Carter, walking off towards her little one. "Gentle, Nattie, pet the puppy gently, love."

That spring Peggy gets a call from her mother telling her that Michael's had a daughter, Sharon Marie Carter, and that everyone is doing well. Micheal lives in Connecticut, but it's a long distance call from her mother in England that informs Peggy that she's an aunt. It hurts, it hurts a lot that she and Michael aren't in a place where they can share their lives. Their daughters are cousins, they should grow up together, but Michael made his choice. A voice from the kitchen table cuts through Peggy's hurt, bringing her attention back to the good things in her life.

"Aunt Peggy!" Tony's voice is pitched a little high in concern as he points to the oven. "I think the cookies are burning!"

"Bullocks!" Peggy mutters softly as she dashes towards the oven to save the mother's day cookies she's helping Tony and Nattie bake "Bulls locks." Her blue-green eyed toddler repeats and Peggy holds in a laugh. "That's a grown up word, poppet. Please don't say it around Mama. I don't want to lose the bet about which one of us teaches you to swear first."

"Don't worry Aunt Peggy." Tony reassured innocently. "Dad already taught her how to say fuck."

Natasha giggled as she repeated. "Oh fuck!"

"Grown up words, children!" Peggy scolds half heartedly while stifling a laugh.

Natasha is three and a half years old when her grandfather Harrison has a heart attack. They are already in London. Peggy was temporarily working out of the London office while Angie reprised her most successful role to date on the West End. Peggy stands perfectly still, not even breathing, as she grips the phone in her hand after receiving the call from her mother. It isn't until she felt Natasha hugging her leg that she is able to shake off her shock and dread and snaps into action. She calls the theater to leave a message for Angie and then packs up Natasha's bag and heads off to the hospital. She steps into the surgical waiting room with her red haired daughter perched on her hip and makes her way straight over to her mother. Harrison is in surgery. Amanda doesn't know more than that because no one will tell her anything. Peggy places Natasha in her grandmother's lap, her mother's arms instantly going around the little girl to cuddle, and then storms off to find out what is happening with her father.

Angie arrives still half in her stage clothes and make-up. Peggy had told the stage manager she spoke with on the phone to give Angie the message after the final curtain of the evening, but he must have given it to her during intermission, because there she was hours before she should have been, seated beside Amanda, one hand holding the older woman's hand, and the other holding tightly to her rosary.

It's really late and Natasha is fussing and cranky, but Peggy needs to stay, and selfishly she wants Angie and their daughter with her. So she holds Natasha to her chest, the little girl's head resting on her shoulder, the warmth of her daughter's breath on her neck, and walks the floor back and forth as she tries to soothe her child to sleep.

When Natasha finally falls asleep in her mother's arms Amanda calls out gently, "Peggy, dear, some sit." She pats the open space on her other side. "You look as tired as she is."

Peggy wants to protest, she wants to keep pacing, but she does as her mother asks. She walks over and sits beside the elder Carter. Amanda puts her arm around her daughter and draws her close. Peggy lays her head on her own mother's shoulder just like Natasha rests on hers. She brings her legs up beside her, carefully adjusting Natasha in her arms, and cuddles into her mother's side. As she allows her eyes to drift close, Peggy hears her mother gently encouraging Angie to rest as well and can hear her wife settling in on her mother's other side.

That's how Micahel finds them when he arrives from Berlin where he'd been on a business trip.

Peggy sensed someone watching them and was instantly awake. When she saw it was her brother her heart pinched painfully in her chest as a swirl of emotions hit her, joining in on the emotional maelstrom she was already trying to survive. As gently as she could Peggy disentabled herself from her mother and ever so gently placed Natasha into Angie's arms. Then she walked over to her brother. "Michael."

"Peggy." Michael replied, the tenison and unease between them turning his stomach. "How's Dad?"

"Still in surgery." She answered as she checked her watch. "The average bypass takes six to eight hours bar any complications. They should be finishing in an hour or so." The pair stood there in awkward silence until Amanda called out Peggy's name. "I'm here Mum." She reassured. "And so is Michael. I'm going to go and see if I can't get some kind of update on Dad."

"I'll come with ya, English." Angie said a bit sleepily as she stood and then reached for Nattie's bag. "Need to find a place to clean up the little miss."

Michael pulled out of the hug he'd been giving his mother to watch as his sister left. "She can't even stand to be around me."

"Can't really blame her." Amanda replied. "Not after the way you've been acting."

The surgeon appeared shortly after Peggy and Angie had finally returned. He told them everything went well, and that Harrison should make a full recovery. Peggy felt her knees wobble as the relief washed over her, and then instantly felt Angie at her back giving her support.

"May we see him now?" Amanda asked.

"Once he's out of recovery and into a proper room." The surgeon answered, taking in the three adults at the elder woman's back. "But only immediate family, and I'm afraid the little one won't be able to see him until he's out of ICU."

Amanda nodded her understanding and then said, "That's fine, Doctor. These are my children Margaret, Angela, and Micheal, is that immediate enough? And I'm sure my Stewart," Amanda had always used her husband's middle name rather than Harrison. "Wouldn't want our granddaughter to see him in this state."

"I'll take Nattie back to the apartment." Angie said softly to Peggy, holding tightly to her wife's hand. "You stay with your Dad, and you tell him that this was a really lousy way to get out of dominos rematch."

Peggy chuckled softly and nodded. "It's a flat dear, and I will, I promise."

A few days later while his father was being examined Michael found himself wandering the hospital since he'd been chased from his father's room. Peggy had taken their mother home to rest, shower, and eat something that wasn't hospital food, leaving him on dad watch. His sister barely said two words to him and it was eating away at him. They had been so close before the war, before he was taken, and now, now she could barely look at him, and he was well aware that it was his own damn fault. He wanted so badly to cling to the way things were before the world went to hell, that he hadn't been willing to properly grow into the new one he'd found himself in following his resecure.

As he passed the hospital chapel Micheal happened to glance in and caught sight of a somewhat familiar head of dark blonde curls. Stepping inside as quietly as his former training allowed he listened and watched. Angie, on her knees and with rosary in hand, was praying for his father's recovery, his mother's well being, for his sister's continued strength, guidance for herself so she might be what they needed her to be, and for him as well.

When she was finished Angie stood and turned away from the alter only to jump with a tiny squeal of startlement. "Oh, Michael."

"I didn't mean to…" Michael began awkwardly. "I was walking past and saw you. I admit to being curious."

"Curious about what?" Angie asked as she took a few steps towards him.

Michael waved a hand to indicate the room. "You were praying."

"And?" Angie prodded. "You don't think queer people pray? I may not pray in a Catholic church these days, but that's only because they have an issue with me. God doesn't. Our relationship is just fine, thank you." Michael looked confused and for a moment it stung a little because he made the same face Peggy did. "God isn't going to judge us for being different, He'll judge us on our actions in life. Were we kind and compassionate? Were we giving to those in need, strong for those who were weak, and honest in the way we lived. He isn't going to judge me because I love Peggy, He'll judge me on if I loved her well, if I kept my vows to her, promised in His name. Men judge purely on the differences between us, Michael, not God. So why wouldn't I continue to pray to Him?"

He did not have his sister's poker face so Michael's surprise was written all over his before it shifted into something else, something even he wasn't sure about. "How do you think he'd judge me?"

"As a really shit brother." Angie answered honestly before excusing herself.

Natasha is four years old and gleefully chasing after her red and white king charles spaniel who was named Rosie, when she spots a tall man with dark hair appoch her mother who is sat on a nearby bench. Peggy stands to greet her brother, a bit guarded but not standoffish. She relaxed a bit more when Michael introduces her to the toddler in his arms. "Peggy, meet Sharon. Sharon, this is your Aunt Peggy."

As if by magic Peggy can feel Natasha at her side the moment she has Sharon in her arms. She chuckles softly. "Nattie, love, this is your cousin Sharon, and your Uncle Michael."

Blue-green eyes dart between the blonde girl in her mother's arms and the dark haired man. Her mother wasn't completely at ease, but she didn't sense anything that said she should be leery from her. So Natasha smiled. "Hello."

Michael returned that smile as he crouched down to be eye level with Natasha. "Hello Natasha, it's very nice to finally meet you."

"Are you a Howlin' Commando too?" Natasha asks, because up until now her only uncles had been Howling Commandos, eccentric billionaire inventors, and English butlers.

"No poppet," Peggy said as she sat down on the bench, placing her two year old niece in her lap. "Michael is Mummy's older brother."

"Oh." Natasha replied. She smiled at Michael and said, "Nice to meet you." Then she turned to her mother, giving her her best puppy dog eyes. "Mummy! Can I have a brother too?"

"No dear." Peggy said easily. "You already have a Tony." She chuckled softly. "Why don't you take Sharon over there on the grass and introduce her to Rosie."

Natasha pouted for three seconds before saying, "Ok Mummy. Come on Sharon, want to meet my puppy? Grandad gave her to me and because he's Mummy's daddy, and she wasn't allowed to say no."

Peggy groaned softly with amusement as she set Sharon on her feet to toddle off with Natasha. "She is going to use that against me from here on out to get what she wants from Dad."

Michael laughed as he took a seat beside his sister. "Why do you think he put it in her head in the first place? We gave the man granddaughters, Peggy, he's going to spoil them absolutely rotten."

While her Mummy talked to her uncle Natasha sat on the grass with her dog and her cousin and played. She thought about Tony and how much she loved him and how good he was at being her big cousin, and then she looked at Sharon and smiled. "I'm your big cousin, Sharon." She told the toddler. "We're gonna be best friends. I promise."

Natasha is twelve years old and sits quietly in the first pew of the stuffy old church in Virginia. She's sat between her mothers, Peggy to her right and Angie to her life. She's wearing a simple dark navy blue dress which isn't bad, but the matching tights are itchy. She wiggles and shifts in her seat a bit as the pastor speaks, causing her Ma to reach out and place a gentle hand on her leg to still her. Natasha sighs softly. Beside her Mum sits Sharon. She's wearing a dress much like Natasha's only hers is black. Natasha hears a soft sniffle and sits forward ever so slightly to look over at her cousin. Sharon is ten, her hair is long and blonde like her mother's and held back with a black headband. In a lot of ways Sharon favors her mother just a bit more than her father. Except for her eyes, she has Carter eyes, big and brown. Sometimes a little sliver of jealousy creeps on Natasha like a caterpillar crawling across her skin because Sharon looks like her parents, because Sharon has her Mum's eyes. But it's only ever a fleeting thought because it doesn't matter if Natasha looks like her mothers, she's loved by them unconditionally and that's what's important.

Sharon's Carter brown eyes and staring straight ahead at the mahogany and brass casket just below where the pastor was speaking. Natasha allowed her own gaze to flicker towards it for a moment, but only a moment because it was hard to look at it. It unsettled her, the shiny rectangular box surrounded by flowers, because she knew her Uncle Michael's body was inside of it. He'd gotten sick a year and a half ago, cancer, and despite how hard he fought they'd lost him anyway. Fear and sadness churned in Natasha's stomach threatening to make her ill. Sadness over losing her uncle, of never hearing his laugh as he chased them around the park on Sunday afternoons, of never watching him and her Mum play chess with such serious expressions on their faces that they seemed almost silly, and never again sneaking away on hot summer days at the beach to eat ice cream until they felt sick.

The fear came everytime Natasha thought about losing her mothers. She looked up at them now, her Mum's eyes were red rimmed but her face remained stoic, her Ma looked sad and concerned, her own gaze stealing glances at her English to make sure she was alright. The thought of losing either of them nearly made Natasha double over, the tension in her belly was so bad. Closing her eyes she took a slow breath hoping to relieve some of her anxiety, and then turned her attention once more to Sharon. She was a little startled to see that Sharon was looking back. Reaching out over her Mum's lap Natasha offered Sharon her hand. Sharon took it gladly, squeezing it tightly and Natasha could tell it was trembling a bit. She tightened her grip. The girls' rested their entwined hands on Peggy's lap. Moments later Peggy rested her own hands on top of them causing the girls to look up at her and then at each other. Natasha smiled first, and then Sharon. They would always be there for each other, and Peggy would be there for them both.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes Cousins are the Worse! 

Something in her gut was telling Natasha that Tony's manic behavior was due to more than just lingering PTSD from being captured, held, and tortured by terrorists hired to kill him by one of Howard's business partners. Sure that was a factor in the way Tony had been living his life since his return, but over the last few weeks he seemed to be getting worse when he had wanted to be better. Natasha had been on a mission when Tony was taken, and to deeply in to even be notified about it, let alone able to do something. She would have scoured every single cave and tunnel in the middle east herself looking for him if she had known. According to Fury her mother had threatened to do just that, and Natasha had tried to smother a sense of guilt for not being here for her family by joking that he should have let her. Peggy Carter would have found Tony sooner and taken out the entire terrorist cell while doing it, and she'd have done it all on her own to find her wayward boy.

It wasn't until Natasha had completed her mission and returned to her safehouse in Prague that she learned of what happened to Tony, and it took another six weeks before Fury would order her home. He'd given her an extended R&R at first, during which she'd stayed with her mothers, helping them move back into their old faded red brick brownstone in Brooklyn now that her Mum was retired and no longer needed to live close to the Capitol. It was during that time that Natasha had heard a bit more about Tony, and how he'd called one night, a bit drunk, and rambled on for over an hour about wanting to do better, be better, and promising his Aunt Peggy he would make her proud of him again, because he had a plan.

That plan had turned out to be a red and gold suit of high tech armor. At first it seemed like Tony had meant what he'd said to Peggy during his rambling phone call, he was trying to do the right thing, to make up for past mistakes made in the Stark name. Natasha, meanwhile, had been told she was being reassigned to the New York office by Fury, and had moved into an apartment in Queens. Then Tony started showboating again and Fury called her in with her next assignment. Tony.

Tony had no idea she was a SHIELD agent, hell he didn't even know about SHIELD until Coulson started bugging Pepper Potts about debriefing meetings. Tony just thought he was bringing family into the family company. He'd been absolutely thrilled at the idea. "A Carter and a Stark working together to build a better future, it's how it should be Nattie!" He'd said as he'd showed her around the New York offices before spiriting her away to the West Coast offices. Pepper hadn't been so sure about her at first. Tony wasn't the display family photos all over the place type, so Pepper didn't know who Natasha was at first sight.

"Ah, Nattie!" Tony said excitedly when Natasha walked into the gym. "Good, good, got those papers form legal for me?"

"Right here, Tony." Natasha said holding up a thick black portfolio.

"Great!" Tony replied as he climbed out of the boxing ring he'd been in with Happy Hogan. "You give me those, and while Potts and I sign them you can keep Happy company."

Natasha could feel the other woman's eyes on her as she smirked at Tony as he took the portfolio from her. She could hear Pepper's protests, something about sexural harassment and she couldn't help but chuckle softly as she climbed into the ring to tease Happy for a little awhile. Happy, unlike Pepper, knew who she was to Tony and it was kind of sweet that he wanted to teach her self-defence.

"What do you mean new personal assistant?" Pepper hissed softly.

"You're going to be too busy being the CEO and Chair of the company to be my assistant anymore." Tony replied as he signed the documents Natasha had brought him. "I needed a new one."

"So you just hired the first pretty face to apply?" Pepper's voice was tight, her tone low, a touch of anger and maybe a little hurt coloring her words. "What do you even know about her? How did you even meet her? How long have you known this woman? Forty-eight hours? Twelve?"

"Huh?" Tony looked up at her with a confused expression. "Pretty face? Who Nattie? Eww, Pepper don't be gross. How long have I known her?" He blinked, turned to look at Natasha in the ring, barefoot, wearing her pencil skirt and blouse that reminded him of her school uniform. "Hey Nattie, how old are you?"

Natasha groaned and rolled her eyes while ducking Happy's playful jabs. Well, Happy thought he was being serious, to Natasha it was playful. "I'm five years younger than you, Tony, you know this."

"Oh, right, yes." He replied and then followed up with, "Hey Nattie, how old am I?"

"You're an idiot, Tony." Natasha chuckled. "A brilliant genius idiot."

Tony beamed. "Yeah, but I'm your brilliant genius idiot and you love me."

"Only because I have too." Natasha teased back.

Pepper looked on with an uncomfortable expression, her pale skin flushing. She was about to say something, or smack someone or, she wasn't quite sure, when Natasha slammed Happy into the mat of the boxing ring, causing her and Tony both to jump to their feet and rush to the ring. "Happy!"

"I'm fine!" He mumbled from where he was pressed to the mat.

Tony laughed hard. "Ok, ok, let him up Nat. Aunt Peggy would be impressed."

That was a name Pepper knew. "Aunt Peggy?"

Natasha shook her head at Tony while helping Happy up. "Tony, Pepper has no idea who I am, does she?"

"Of course she does!" Tony sounded offended. "Pepper is my…" He blushed, suddenly at a loss for words. "My Pepper, she knows who my family is!"

"Family?" Pepper repeated.

Climbing out of the ring Natasha stands in front of Pepper and holds out her hand. "Natasha Carter, it's a pleasure to finally meet you Ms. Potts." She smiled a warm reassuring smile. Pepper accepted her hand but still looked a bit confused so she explained, "My mother is Tony's godmother, and his father was my godfather. We were pretty much raised as cousins."

It finally clicked for Pepper and she smiled repeated. "Aunt Peggy?"

Natasha nodded. "Is my mother, yes."

After that Natasha and Pepper got along wonderfully since they both knew all too well what it was like to love, though in vastly different ways, Tony Stark. Whose behavior was getting more erratic by the day, which made the knot in Natasha's stomach grow tighter with each new stupid stunt. When she started noticing him slipping off alone she followed him, only to watch him with a small gray device he would press his finger to. Each time Tony used that thing he looked more and more dejected. Whenever she would ask him what was going on he would brush her off, it was really starting to piss her off. So if Tony wouldn't talk to her, maybe someone else could clue her in.

"Jarvis?" She calls out softly as she stands alone in Tony's Malibu house.

"Yes Miss Carter?" The AI responds.

Natasha still finds herself fighting back a shiver whenever Tony's AI responds to her with her Uncle Jarvis' voice. She missed him and Aunt Ana, and every time the AI called her Miss Carter it felt like a sharp prick to the heart. She sighs softly, unsure if this will even work. Can you even appeal to an AI's sense of compassion? Does it even have a sense of compassion? "If there is truly any part of my Uncle Jarvis in your programing, please tell me what's going on with Tony so I can help him."

"Miss Carter I'm afraid I…" The AI starts and then stops.

"Jarvis?" Natasha calls out, a little worried that she might have broken it.

Several minutes later Natasha is thundering her way down to Tony's shop and keying in her passcodes to open the door. She's so pissed her skin is flushed nearly as red as her hair. She storms over to Tony who's tinkering with something and punches him hard.

"Ow!" Tony yelps in genuine pain. "What was that for?!"

"You're fucking dying of palladium posisoning and you didn't think to tell me!" Natasha yells at him, tears of anger and fear starting to well in her blue-green eyes so she hits him again for making her teary.

"Ow!" Tony whines again. "Stop hitting me!" He yells back at her and then freezes. "How… How do you know that?"

"You turned Uncle Jarvis into a computer, Tony!" Natasha sniped at him. "You weren't the only one who had an emotional connection to him!"

"I didn't actually turn Jarvis into a computer, you know." Tony huffed at her and began to explain J.A.R.V.I.S to her in detail.

Natasha growled at him, and went to hit him again, but this time he caught her by the wrist. For several long moments they simply looked into each others' eyes before she stopped struggling against his grip. "You selfish son of a bitch!"

"I didn't want to hurt you, Nattie." Tony said softly. "I don't want to watch the people I love suffer knowing I'm going to die and there's nothing they can do about it."

"Bullshit!" Natasha shook her head, pulling her hand from his grasp so she could poke him in the chest. "You're not going to die! Do you hear me, Tony? You dying now isn't in the plan! Remember? You, me, and Sharon growing old and cranky, sitting in the park on Sundays yelling at the youths. That's the plan. Now tell me how I can help you!"

"You can't, Nattie." Tony said softly, his own eyes welling with tears as he watches tears roll down Natasha's cheeks. Natasha, his Natasha, as strong as Aunt Peggy and as sassy as Aunt Angie, and here she was in tears over him, begging him to let her do something. This is why he didn't want to tell her. "I've tried everything, there isn't another element out there that will…" She turned away from him, marching towards the door with frightening purpose. "Nat, where are you going?"

"If you won't help your damn self then I'm going to the one person who can either make you help yourself or will know someone who can help." Natasha replied.

Tony shot forward, grabbing Natasha by the arm. "Natasha no! Please! You can't tell her!"

"Why the bloody hell not!" Natasha replied as she turned to glare at him. "She can help, Tony!"

"She can't." Tony said, pulling his cousin into his arms and hugging her tightly. She was trembling. His heart was breaking. "Nat, I'm sorry, but not even Aunt Peggy can fix this."

Maybe Tony was right, maybe her mother couldn't fix this. She was retired after all, and didn't have the same amount of access to people and things that she use too. She'd given all of that over to someone else, and luckily for her, that someone else was rather fond of her, and that crazy ass plan of his. "I know what's wrong with Stark."

"Bipolar disorder?" Fury asked, not looking up from his work. "Combined with alcoholism?"

Natasha had a biting comeback ready to defend her cousin but stopped. That wasn't a bad guess in all honesty. "The damn thing keeping him alive is slowly killing him." She said instead. When he looked up at her she explained, "Tony's got palladium poisoning."

"That would explain a lot." Fury says, sitting back in his chair. "He's a man who thinks he's going to die."

"Help him." Natasha demanded.

"Excuse me, Agent Romanoff?" Fury sat up straight and glared at her.

"Do something to save his life." Natasha said, her tone of voice and posture mimicking her mother's perfectly. "Or I go to my mother."

Fury barked out a laugh. "I'm not afraid of Peggy Carter."

"Maybe you're not," Natasha marched over to the desk and looked him in the eye. "But you care about her, you respect her, and wouldn't want to hurt her. Losing Tony, would hurt her."

They glared at each other for a long time before Fury finally gave in. "Fine, I'll see what I can do."

Natasha relaxed a little for the first time since finding out about Tony's poisoning. "Thank you, Sir."

On her way out of the building Natasha passed Sharon who looked at her with concern. For a moment Natasha thought about pulling her cousin into an empty room and telling her everything, but then she heard Tony's voice begging her to keep this between them. It was remembering the crack in his voice as he asked her to keep his secret that made her give Sharon the slightest shake of her head before walking away. The only people who knew about their connection to each other, as well as who they were to the former Director and founder of SHIELD, were Fury and Hill, maybe Coulson but Natasha didn't think so. Fury had turned her into Natalia Romanoff when he'd recruited her behind her mother's back, so that's who the other agents knew her as. Sharon was in Special Services, which meant she simply went by a number, Agent 13. They had both been adamant about failing or succeeding on their own merits, not on their shared last name. Agent Romanoff and Agent 13 hardly ever crossed paths so it would be a bit odd for Sharon to go running after Natasha now, which was a good thing because Natasha wasn't sure she could lie to Sharon if the blonde asked her point blank what was wrong.

Knowing that she would find it hard to keep Tony's secret from Sharon, meant there was no way in hell she could be around her mothers, so Natasha went back to her apartment and packed up a few things before returning to Malibu. During her short return to New York, Tony had managed to make things worse between himself and Pepper, which lead to him acting even more like a giant idiot. Thankfully it only took nine days for Fury to show up, not with a cure but something to keep the poisoning at bay, and something that would hopefully give Tony what he needed to solve the problem himself. Tony, the big dumbass, fought against the idea, refusing to let go of his resolve. He was also a bit grumpy about finding out that Natasha was a secret agent for a secret agency founded by their parents and run, until recently, but his beloved aunt his entire life.

"Jarvis, call my Mum." Natasha ordered the AI as she stood toe to toe with Tony in the ruins of his Malibu home.

"Calling Peggy Carter." Jarvis replied.

"Natasha what are you doing?" Tony demanded.

"If you're not going to take this seriously I'm calling in someone who will make you!" Natasha fired back.

"Alright fine!" Tony yelled. "I'll do! Not that it's going to matter!"

Natasha glared at him, looking into his eyes as the sound of soft ringing filled the air until it was replaced by an accented voice. "Hello?"

A few more seconds of glaring and Natasha relaxed when she saw Tony meant it, he would try. "Hi Mum. I'm just checking in while I've got a few free minutes."

Tony is equal parts relieved, thankful, and annoyed when he tells her he did it. He discovered a new element, and he was already adding it to his arc reactor. He was going to be alright. Her knees wobble with the wave of relief that washed over her.

"Thank you." Tony said softly, looking at her in a way that conveyed more than his simple words, though for Tony saying thank you really wasn't all that simple. "Nat, really. I'm going to be ok because of you, because you wouldn't give up on me."

Natasha hugged him tight, and sighed softly when he returned the hug. When they finally let each other go she pushed him back playfully and said, to cover the tears of relief in her voice, "Neither one of us will be ok if my Mum ever finds out about this."

Tony snorted and tisked. "I'm not afraid of Aunt Peggy. I have an Ironman suit to protect me."

Natasha laughed, her first genuine laugh since Jarvis said the words palladium poisoning. "You think that red and gold tincan's going to stop her from thrashing you for almost drying and not telling her? She'd find the world's biggest can opener."

Tony laughed. "She would wouldn't she?" Then he stopped, blinked, and looked at his cousin with the slightest bit of fear in his eyes. "She would! Wouldn't she! Nat! Aunt Peggy can never know!"

"Agreed." Natasha nodded. "If she knew I knew and didn't tell her, that I lied for you again, no amount of SHIELD training would be able to save my ass."

The Stark Expo was an absolute nightmare. Natasha had used her connection to Tony to get VIP passes for her neighbor and her young nephew who was a huge Tony Stark fan. The boy had been so excited, so happy and full of joy. He'd been running around the expo wearing the brand new Ironman helmet and gloves Natasha had gotten for him having the time of his life. Natasha had been thrilled to have been able to give that to him, and the smiles she kept getting from his aunt were all the repayment she'd needed. Truth be told Natasha might have the tiniest crush on her neighbor, but after the dangerous disaster that was the Stark Expo, Natasha didn't think she'd still have the woman as a friend, let alone anything else. Natasha had to leave them on their own during the mayhem to rush off to Hammer's facility and in her annoyance at having to do so, began bickering with Tony, letting his near death experience slip while Pepper was on the comms. Pepper had been pissed, rightfully so, but Natasha assumed all was well again, what with all the kissing Pepper and Tony were now doing.

"You didn't have to punch him in the face, Nattie." Tony said as Natasha helped him pack up his bots.

"He stole one of your suits and turned it over to the military, Tony." Natasha huffed. "He's suppose to be your best friend. Best friends don't do that."

"He was in a really tough place, Nat." Pepper said from where she sat at Tony's workbench working on a tablet. "His loyalty to Tony or his loyalty to his duty."

Natasha grumbled, still not willing to look past what Rhodey did. She was about to tell them both that it would be a long time before she trusted the man, and that if he ever hurt Tony again she'd do more than punch him in the face, but a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach made her stop. It was that same sinking feeling she'd gotten only a slight handful of times as a kid when she'd done something so stupid or wrong that she'd gotten the old, "Go to your room Natasha and wait until your mother gets home!" from her Ma. It was the same overwhelming sense of dread she'd felt when she'd heard the front door open and her mother's heels on the hardwood below her.

When he saw Natasha's hand go to her stomach and her lips twist into a frown, Tony stopped what he was going to fully take her in. "Nattie? You ok?"

"Do you feel that?" She asked her cousin with slightly wide eyes.

Tony looked confused for a moment, it had been a while so it took longer to hit him. He hadn't felt that kind of forboring since the L.A. incident. "I feel a disturbance in the Force."

"What?" Happy called out, tensing up as if ready to fight because Tony's secret agent cousin suddenly looked concerned.

"She's here." Tony said, his head tilted back, his gaze locked on the ceiling as if he were following something as it moved across the floor above them.

They hadn't replaced the glass that Tony had blasted so the sound of heels echoed like a steady, angry, heartbeat. Natasha swallowed. "She knows."

"Nat!" Tony whispered her name with hiss.

"I didn't tell her!" Natasha shot back. "Why would I throw myself into hot water?" She hit him, slapping his shoulder as she huffed. "This is your fault!"

"How is it my fault?" Tony whined.

She hit him again.

The two bickered back and forth as the heels that appeared on the stairs turned into nylon encased legs, which turned into hips, a torso, and then finally a very angry face. Peggy Carter stood, framed by the paneless window, with heat in her eyes for a moment before she her voice shot through the silence like a whip crack. "Anthony Edward Stark!"

"Aunt Peggy!" Tony stammered.

With her mother's focus on Tony, Natasha tried to slip out of her mother's line of sight. There was a hole in the wall nearby, if she could reach it she could escape the firestorm that was about to fall on their heads.

Peggy snapped her heated gaze to her daughter, freezing the younger woman in place. "Natasha Elizabeth Luisa Martinelli Carter do not move!"

Natasha hit Tony again.

"Ow!" Tony whined. "Stop hitting me!"

"All five names Tony!" Nastasha yelled at him. "I got all five names because of you!"

She hit him with each word spoken and Tony whined, "Aunt Peggy make Nattie stop hitting me!"

"Enough!" Peggy ordered as she closed in on her children. "If you two don't knock it off I'm the one whose going to start a round of proper smacking! Lord knows you've both earned one!"

As Pepper and Happy retreated from the shop Happy couldn't help but notice the amused, pleased with herself, look on Pepper's face. He shook his head and smirked. "You called Aunt Peggy."

"I thought it was long past time that I got to know Tony's family, and the other women in his life that matter to him." Pepper replied sweetly as the scolding tones of a royally pissed Peggy Carter faded as the pair made their way to what use to be a front door. "If during the conversation with the woman who helped raise Tony I may have mentioned what happened, well, my bad." Pepper beamed at Happy who just smirked and shook his head. "Now, I believe Angie is staying at the Beverly Hills, I would love to meet her. Would you drive me over?"

"Absolutely." Happy said, opening the door. "I have a feeling those three will be awhile. I'll come back to pick them up when it's safe."


	5. Chapter 5

A's note: This chapter is for DopeyTheDwarf (over on AO3) who has been so kind and supportive of this world I've created. We authors really do appreciate comments. :) Dopey, I hope this chapter is close to your request for a hurt/sick chapter and that you enjoy it!

~Reese

* * *

All for One and One for All

Her mission was complete. She had taken down the targets and retrieved the information she was sent for. It should have been easy, it was a routine assignment for her, but everything had gone wrong almost from the start. It felt as if they had been ready for her, because there hadn't been a reason to have the brawler on hand, someone who could keep her busy with his brute force strength, nor was there a need for the marksman who took shots at her while she was busy fighting off the brawler. The brawler's first mistake was letting her get her hands on a thick heavy pipe, his second was looming over her when he'd thought he had her beat. She had a bullet wound in her thigh, so he wasn't expecting her boot to come crashing into his crotch with such force that one of his testicales ruptured, he hadn't expected the pipe upside his head either. The marksman's mistake was letting her get eyes on him after she shot the brute. The marksman had the audacity to look amused when she leveled the glock at him, a simple basic handgun held in the non dominant hand of a woman against his rifle and skill, with the space between them, he had the upper hand. That look of amusement faded quickly in the seconds that remained between the Black Widow's single shot and him noticing the trail of blood coming from the bullet hole in his forehead.

Her right shoulder was dislocated, and she was fairly sure there was a gunshot wound as well. The dislocation would be the easiest of her injuries to take care off, Natasha simply rammed her shoulder into the corner of a wall to pop it back into place, biting down on her lip to keep from screaming because the marksman had indeed gotten her in the shoulder too. Her lip was busted, but at this point she didn't count that as an injury to take stock of any more. After finding her favorite combat knife, a gift from her Mum that matched her favorite side arm also a gift from her Mum, Natasha shredded the brawlers shirt and belt to bandage the gunshot wound in her thigh, and to pack against the knife wound in her left side three fingers below the bottom of her breast. The shoulder wound was too hard to reach, and there wasn't must she could do about the broken ribs other than slow shallow breaths to keep from puncturing one of her lungs. The broken wrist wasn't a big deal, she'd finished her semi final floor routine with a broken wrist when she was fourteen. Her Mum had been both extremely proud of her and really cross with her over it.

With the injuries she was aware of taken care of well enough to finish the job, the Black Widow continued on. She used the pain to center and focus, taking down everyone in her path with lethal force. After retrieving the information, as she was trying to make her escape, she had no choice but to cause a rather impressive explosion. The problem was that the resulting fireball knocked out the areas communications, leaving her with no easy way of calling for an extraction. There was a safehouse in Minsk, but that was several hundred miles south of where she was. She had a safehouse of her own set up near the border, if she could get there she could at least treat her wounds and then cross into Latvia and call for a ride. It wasn't an easy trek, and Natasha was hurt a lot worse than she'd thought. Apparently the marksman had nailed her in the back, just above her kidney. Fuck. If she died in Belarus on a fucking fetch quest mission she was going to be pissed.

Sharon had been in Denmark when she got the call from Hill. Black Widow had missed a check in, satellite images show her target location was a smoldering wreckage, and her last location was somewhere in northern Belarus. Sharon was the closest agent to go in and try to locate the Black Widow. Of course Sharon went, Hill might have kept using her code name, but this was Natasha! Her Natasha! Belarus wasn't a hostile country, but it was far too close to Russia, and Russia was not Natasha's biggest fan. There were a lot of people in Russia butt hurt over the American spy who liked to dismantle their Red Room training program while using the code name Black Widow. Natasha did it to honor her birth mother, the original Black Widow, but the Russians didn't care about Natasha's reasons. In fact if they knew Natasha's reasons she'd be in even more danger. Sharon had to find her cousin and get her the hell out of the soviet block.

If Natasha didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be found. Unless of course you'd been partially raised by the same woman who'd raised Natasha. Wither Aunt Peggy had done it consciously or not she had taught two little girls how to navigate and survive in world out to get them, and she'd done it without scaring them, but rather empowering them. With the foundation laid in place by Aunt Peggy and the special training she and Natasha had reserved from Fury who'd sent them to some of the same specialists all across the world to acquire skills regular agents wouldn't have, Sharon was really Natasha's only hope of being found. Eastern Europe was full of abandoned factories both above ground and below. A massive rabbit's warren of tunnels and chambers lay beneath many countries that were once part of the Solviet Union. Starting at Natasha's mission site Sharon worked her way towards the board, and into one such rabbit's warren.

Though she might want to think of it more as a spider's web. A normal search and rescue unit might have made it past the first set of traps Natasha had laid out, but she doubted very much they would have made it through all of them, let alone have reached the bunker where she eventually found her cousin laying motionless and pale on an old metal army bunk. Sharon ran over to Natasha, pushing away her panic and fear and allowing her training to take control. Natasha's breathing was slow and shallow, her skin pale, clammy, but the light trembling of her muscles meant she probably had a fever. There was clear evidence littered around the bed that Natasha had used several blood stopping measures, empty packets of blood clot powder, used syringes and applicators, but there was a lot of powder on the floor and bed, and only part of the continents of the applications were used. There were also a lot of blood soaked rags and bandages that Sharon found hard to ignore. "Fucking hell, Nat, what happened?"

Reaching for her field knife, a gift from Aunt Peggy, she began cutting away her cousin's uniform so she could get a look at just how badly Natasha was wounded. Then she opened her med kit and got to work removing bullets, stitching up the holes left behind as well as the knife gashes, some of which would need more medical attention than she could provide in the field. As she worked, Sharon constantly checked Natasha's pulse, it was weak but there. "Stay with me Nattie, you can't leave me in this world alone to deal with Tony, that's just mean."

Once Sharon was finished with what she could do medically, including jabbing a syringe full of antibiotics and another full of pain and fever meds into Natasha's unwounded thigh, all she could do was sit back and wait for Natasha to wake up. She couldn't possibly move Natasha on her own, not with her injuries, so she would need to find a way to get them an evac. Whatever the hell Natasha blew up took out their comms, so she would have to figure something else out.

Someone was in the room with her. Natasha could sense it, even in her half conscious state. She was lethargic, her mind clouded, so she had to concentrate on very carefully moving her arm, the one up against the wall. Somewhere in her foggy mind she realised that she could feel the roughness of the old wool blanket against her skin in a way that meant parts of her uniform were missing. Her stomach twisted, and she would have frowned if she had the energy to do so. She could feel the person getting closer, could hear the gentle footfalls, the soft hum of a female voice, and if she'd been in a better frame of mind she would have recognized the scent that washed over her as the person reached for her.

Honestly Sharon should have expected this and checked around the bunk for weapons while she was dressing Natasha's wounds, but she'd been so focused on stabilizing her cousin she hadn't thought to do so. Now that she had the muzzle of a glock pressed up against sternum, Sharon was really berating herself for such a stupid oversite. "Stand down Agent Carter."

The voice reached the part of Natasha's functioning brain not clouded by pain and drugs, and when she realized who it was she could have sobbed. She didn't pull the gun away just yet though, a voice could be mimicked, but an enemy wouldn't know to use her real name. "Sharon?"

"It's me Nattie." Sharon reassured as she gently took the glock from her cousin's hand.

Natasha struggled to open her eyes but once she managed she saw her cousin's smiling face looking down at her, her long blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, her big brown eyes full of concern. Natasha did her best to smile to ease some of her cousin's worries, but it was a rather weak grin at best. "You were always the best hide and seek seeker, Shar-Bear."

Sharon groaned and rolled her eyes. "I hate that nickname, Nattie-Cat, and you know it."

Now Natasha knew for sure it was her Sharon. She let herself fully relax and even tried to sit up, but Sharon's firm hand stopped her.

"Easy, Nat." Sharon said gently. "Whatever blood you got left in that body of yours is still in there because of field stitches and dressings, not to mention the fever, so you've picked up an infection to boot. So just stay put."

She hated staying put, but moving caused her enough pain that she was seeing bright lights in her vision. "How'd you find me?"

"Not easily." Sharon admitted as she reached for a clean cloth and a bottle of water. She did her best to wipe away some of the sweat and grim on Natasha's face, as well as making a lame attempt at cooling the redhead down a bit. "Nice little hide away you have here little spider, not exactly on the SHIELD list of safehouses though."

"Can't always reach official nav points." Natasha moaned softly. "And sometimes a girl just needs a little privacy."

"Privacy huh?" Sharon repeated, a teasing grin on her lips. "Does the red army aethstetic do it for you and Agent Barton?"

"Eww! Sharon, gross!" Natasha moaned in both annoyance and pain. "I'm not sleeping with Barton! Yuck! He's my best friend!"

While she had Natasha distracted Sharon looked over her wounds. Stitches were holding, and not for the first time Sharon began to wonder if Aunt Peggy had taught them needle work as little girls to teach them strong suturing skills. "Ok, but you did sleep with that assassin sent to kill your target. The one SHEILD's never been able to pinpoint, long hair, prosthetic arm."

Natasha groaned again, though she couldn't be sure if it was because of the subject matter or Sharon poking at her wounds. "That was a mistake, I'll admit, but sex in the heat of a fight, it's really fucking hot. You should try it some time, though Tripp doesn't seem like the fight and fuck type."

"Tripp and I decided we're better as just friends." Sharon said softly while opening a little tube packet of electrolyte powder, which she then poured it into a water bottle. After shaking it up she put a straw in it and had Natasha sip it. She also decided to change the subject. "How'd you of all people manage to get so trashed, Nat? No one gets the best of the Black Widow these days."

This time Natasha growled in anger rather than groaning in pain. "They were prepared for me."

"Fuck." Sharon replied. "Then Fury's paranoia isn't just Fury being Fury?"

Natasha shook her head. "With Mum retired there are wolves at the door, Sharon." Reaching out she grabbed hold of Sharon's wrist and looked up into her eyes, her Carter brown eyes. "We can't let them take down SHIELD, Sharon. We can't let those bastards tear down and tarnish Mum's life's work."

"We won't, Nat." Sharon promised with just as much conviction as the redhead. "But we can't do anything until we get back. Communications all over the area are out, not even our comms work, especially down here."

A bit of a giggle passed Natasha's lips. "Yeah, that's my bad, bigger boom then I'd expected."

"Big booms aren't excaially the finesse you're known for Black Widow." Sharon teased.

Natasha shrugged and then regretted it instantly. "Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

"And sometimes that do is a hostile forgin enemy agent." Sharon teased.

"Fuck you, Sharon." Natasha said with a painful chuckle.

The girls formulated a plan that consistent of getting Natasha on her feet and out of the bunker to a place where they could call for an evac. The struggle came from Sharon wanting Natasha to get on her feet without swaying and turning pale as a ghost, while Natasha wanted to go now. While other agents normally yielded to them easily, they were both Carters and could be equally stubborn, and couldn't intimidate each other. Their Carter standoff came to an end however when they felt the floor and walls rumble around them. Sharon helped Natasha into a sitting position, handed her two glocks, and then pulled her own weapons. There was only one way in, and cover between it and them. Something was coming and they were ready for it.

"Wait," Natasha said through teeth gritted in pain. "Do you hear…"

"Ozzy Osbourne?" Sharon picked up, head tilted to the side. "Is that Crazy Train?"

A huge smile broke out on Natasha's face because she knew exactly who had made the place rumble and was now advancing on their position.

Stepping into the room Jarvis had led him to Tony throws up his armored hands when he finds himself face to face with two Carters packing pistols. "Whoa, whoa, Carters, it's just me!"

"Tony?" Sharon said in disbelief as she stared at Iron Man with his hands raised as if the bullets from their glocks could actually hurt him.

"Yeah, it's me, in the suit." Tony replied as his mask pop open.

Sharon relaxed, lowering her weapons, relief washing over her features. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see you, but what the hell are you doing here?"

"Fury called me when Shar-Bear's tracking beacon went off line." Tony replied before explaining that the bunker and tunnels around them had been built to block out radio waves, it was a communications dead zone. "Anyway, Fury's excat words were, and I quote, "I've already lost one fucking Carter, Strak, I can't loss another one! The old woman will take my only good eye, Stark! Fuck, that old bulldog will have my fucking head if I loose both of them! Find those fucking girls, shellhead!" end quote." Tony pouted. "Shellhead was kind of rude, don't you think?"

Sharon just shook her head and chuckled. "Come help me with Nattie, shellhead. I hope you brought more than just yourself, she'd not in any shape for a piggy back ride."

"Jarvis is landing a med jet as we speak." Tony replied.

When Tony reached down as if to pick her up and carry her Natasha growled at him. "Don't even think about it." She warned him. "Help me up. I can walk."

"She can't, but it's Nat, so…" Sharon cut in as she gathered up all of their stuff, making sure to leave no evidence they were even there behind, especially anything that might have Natasha's blood on it.

"How'd you find us, Tony?" Natasha asked, frowning as her cousins settled her between them so they could get out of there once Sharon was finished cleaning up.

"Apparently when Obie had me kidnapped by terrorists Aunt Peggy lost her shit." Tony began as they made their way out of the bunker. "If she's likely to burn an entire country to the ground to find me or Sharon, she'd raze the whole damn planet to the ground to find her baby girl, so I imprinted both of your bio-signatures into Jarvis's systems. I figured that'd keep the world safe from Mama Bear Carter." Tony looked Natasha up and down, his heart hurt and his anger bubbled up. She was in so much pain, barely keeping herself conscious as they used the shortcut Tony had created by blasting a hole close by. "Can't say I'll get out of her way when it comes to whoever worked you over, Nattie. Fuck, I'll help."

"Me too." Sharon agreed with a firm nod.

Once on the med jet Tony stepped out of his armor to pilot while Sharon settled Natasha on a cot. She was able to get an IV going, which helped her feel a little better, but she wouldn't be completely at ease until they got the redhead into a medical center. From the cockpit Sharon could hear Tony asking Jarvis to play their shared playlist and smiled fondly as he playfully bitched about one of Natasha's choices coming up first.

"There's ballet shit in my AC/DC." Tony whined as some song by Tchaikovsky that they'd probably seen Natasha dance to quietly filled the jet.

Natasha snorted, and then groaned in pain. "Wait until he realizes I added opera last week."

Sharon smiled down at her cousin, taking Natasha's hand in her own, and holding it the whole way back to New York. "Sleep Nattie, you need it."

The poor agent at the front desk had no idea how to handle the irate British woman demanding to be let through to Agent Romanoff's room with a civilian in tow. Agent Henderson couldn't figure out why the former Director was here, especially since the current Director was already back there. The uncertainty on the woman's face only made the anger covering up Peggy's fear that much worse. "If you check Agent Romanoff's," She said the name through gritted teeth, "file you will see that my name as well as Angala Marintelli are listed as her emergency contacts, Agent Henderson. We are also listened as the ones who are allowed to make medical decisions for her. Now, Agent, open the bloody damn doors or I'll do it my damn self."

"It's alright, Agent Henderson." Maria Hill's voice called out. "Director Carter and Ms. Martinelli have clearance."

Peggy hated that it took Hill to get the Agent to do as she was told, but what could she really do? She's the one who made the decisions that led to her retirement. Taking a deep breath as she and Angie followed Hill back to where their daughter was Peggy said, "Thank you Agent Hill."

"Not a problem Ma'am." Maria replied easily. "Henderson's new enough that she doesn't know better." She turned to look at the woman she held so much respect for and smiled warmly. "Nat's going to be alright, Ma'am. They've just brought her down from surgery so she's still out cold. Sharon and Stark are with her, haven't left since they brought her home."

"Sharon and Tony reterved her?" Peggy asked, her gaze shifted from Hill to Fury who stood outside what she assumed to be Natasha's door.

"13 was the closest agent in the field when Romanoff missed her check in." Fury reported as he turned to look at his mentor. "Sent Stark in as backup, still testing him out, seeing if he'll play nice with others."

"Sending him in to back up Nattie and Sharon isn't a fair test, Nicholas." Peggy replied.

Angie snorted. "Those three have been a team since the girls were old enough to get into trouble."

"If you want to know if Tony's going to play ball you have to pair him up with people he doesn't initially like." Peggy advised.

"Hill." Fury said simply.

"Already making a note of it, Sir." Maria replied.

"I'm going to go in." Angie said, reaching for Peggy's hand and giving it a squeeze before disappearing into her daughter's room.

Once it was just the three of them in the hallway Peggy simply said, "Nicholas?"

"Wolves at the door, Ma'am." He answered.

Peggy sighed, nodding her head in understanding, and then she too disappeared into Natasha's room. Her breath hitched at the sight of her baby in the medical bed, wires attaching hidden leads under her gown to the machines beeping out her heartbeat softly, the plastic tube tucked under her nostrils, Angie sat beside her with her hand in Natasha's.

"She's going to be alright, Aunt Peggy." Sharon reassured her aunt as she stepped over to stand beside the woman.

Peggy pulled Sharon into her arms and hugged her tightly. "Thank you for finding her and bringing her home, love." When she let go of Sharon she hugged Tony as well. "You too my darling, thank you."

"We didn't do anything she wouldn't have done for us, Aunt Peggy." Tony replied.

Sharon nodded her agreement with a warm smile for Tony. "Three Musketeers, right T?"

Tony raised his fist and Sharon bumped it easily. "Damn straight."

Angie laughed. "More like Huey, Dewey, and Louie."

"Tony's totally Louie." Sharon said with a firm nod and warm smile.

As Natasha started coming around she carefully took in her surroundings through what she was hearing, the smells in the air, and the warmth of a hand in her own. The sounds and smells clearly told her she was in a hospital room. She could hear the soft rhythmic beeping of her own heart on the monitor and the faint hum of the air circulation system. Like with any medical setting the smell of antiseptic and powerful cleaning products clung to the air, but there was also a familiar scent, a comforting one, one that belonged to the hand holding hers. Her Ma's hands were soft and a little more plumb compared to the hand holding hers now. The palm pressed flush against her own was calloused from years of holding the textured grip of a gun, the middle finger had a noticeable bump created by the way she held her pen, there was a scar in the pinch of skin between her index finger and her thumb from a knife fight Natasha wasn't allowed to know the details of.

It was a bit of a struggle to speak and open her eyes but Natasha managed, though her voice did come out as a softly whispered croak. "Mad?"

Peggy had managed to sit by her daughter's bedside without a single shed tear, no matter how much her heart ached at the sight of her little girl weak and helpless. Hearing her daughter's voice, hearing how small and frightened she was as she asked her simple question, Peggy could no longer keep the burn in her eyes at bay. She let the tears well as she shook her head. "No, of course not, poppet. Why would I be cross with you? You completed your mission and you came home alive, perhaps a little worse for wear, but we've all been there, my darling."

"Ma?" Natasha asked next.

"Scared out of her wits." Peggy said honestly. "Pissed at whoever thought they could dare touch her angel, and rightfully so, but not at you." Peggy stood so she could lean down and place a kiss on Natasha's forehead. "That's from her. Sharon's taken her home for a bit but she'll be back as soon as she knows you're awake." Then she kissed her daughter again, letting her lips linger at Natasha's hairline. "That's from me, my darling."

Natasha relaxed with a soft sigh of relief, and let herself smile a rather dopey smile. "Mummy?"

Peggy couldn't help but smirk. "Yes poppet?"

Natasha's mind flashed back to all the times she'd been hurt as a child because of one activity or another, or because she'd been a little reckless in her playing. Each and every trip to the hospital had come with the same reward for being a good girl who needed a little cheering up. "Gelato and biscuits please."

Peggy laughed and gave her girl one more kiss. "Orange chocolate gelato and jammy dodgers?" Natasha nodded and Peggy reached for the phone to call her wife. "Anything else?"

Natasha was quiet for a moment as her mind ran through everything that had happened over the last few days, and everything that would happen in the coming weeks. "Can I stay with you and Ma when they let me out of here?"

"Of course you can, Natasha." Peggy said firmly, looking down at her daughter and watching the emotions play out across her face. "Baby, you never have to ask to come home, just come home. Your room is always waiting for you, and if it's bad enough, and you need to, you're never to big to crawl into bed with Mama and me."

"I'll keep that in mind." Natasha sighed and closed her eyes. Then she smirked at the thought of her reputation and how people would react if they knew she was thinking about snuggling with her mothers, one of which was THE Peggy Carter. She giggled a little at herself, which she quickly blamed on the drugs in her system, and then said a silent prayer of thanks that she still had the option of crawling into her parents' bed for comfort. If not for Sharon, she might not be here for that luxury. If not for Tony they might still be in that damn bunker. Wiggling the fingers of her other hand Natasha felt what she knew would be there, the small, smooth beads of her Ma's rosary. Tightening her grip she sent off a simple, 'Thank God for cousins.'


	6. Chapter 6

The L.A. Mishap 

It was going to be the best summer ever. They were spending it in California, and Sharon had gotten to come along. Angie was working on a movie adaption of a play she'd done years ago, and a documentary about Peggy's time leading the Howling Commandos was nominated for a big award. Natasha was taking a ballet class with a well known now retired ballerina, and later in the summer she and Sharon would both get to participate in a gymnastics program they were both really looking forward too. They were spending the summer in Howard's, well Tony's now, L.A. mansion, which had among other things a flock of pink flamingos that lived on the grounds.

Tony had just arrived a few days ago to join them for awhile and promised to take the girls out for the day. While exploring the city with her moms had been fun, Natasha was really looking forward to seeing L.A. with Tony. He was twenty and far cooler than her mothers after all. They really hadn't gotten to see much of each other over the last few years. Tony was away at school, and during breaks he was off jet setting. She'd once heard her Mum say that he was running away from the grief over losing his parents, and that he didn't want to deal with reality so he loses himself in his genius, and parties away the pain. Natasha was actually really glad that her Mum agreed to let her and Sharon spend the day with Tony. Maybe they could help him feel better for a little while.

"Don't have them out to late, Anthony." Peggy warned as they were preparing to leave.

Tony smiled a warm and charming smile. "I won't Aunt Peg. I promise."

"Have a good time." Angie said with a warm smile. "Stay out of trouble!"

"Us find trouble?" Tony replies. "Never."

They went to Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier, Tony took them shopping on Rodeo Drive, and they sang along to Bon Jovi, AC/DC, and The All-American Rejects from the backseat of Tony's convertible as they went down Sunset Boulevard. They had lunch at Pinks and searched for celebrities. Tony even took them to this beautiful cliff in Malibu that overlooked the ocean and told them that he's just bought it, pulling a bottle of champagne from the car to celebrate. Natasha was so caught up in Tony's excitement that she didn't even think twice when he gave her a glass. Since both Natasha and Tony were drinking it, Sharon had some too.

"I'm going to build the biggest, most beautiful, most tech advanced house anyone has ever seen." Tony said excitedly. His smile was bright and hopeful, a smile not seen by his loved ones in awhile. He practically danced around the open space, gripping the neck of the champagne bottle in one hand while using the other to point and gesture as he explained his basic ideas for the house. Then he walked over to Natasha, gulping from the bottle, and then put his arm around her shoulders. He pulled her into his side and promised, "Every house I ever build will have a dance studio for you, Nattie, so you'll have a place of your own to practice for when you become a world famous prima ballerina."

"I dance for fun, Tony." Natasha insisted, but smiled sweetly at his gesture. She was just thrilled to see Tony smiling like his old self again, to see the light of excitement in his eyes again. She missed her Tony. Since losing Uncle Howard and Aunt Maria, and learning of Aunt Ana's illness, her Tony had gone away. She hoped that seeing a glimmer of her Tony now meant that he was coming out of whatever shadows he'd been hiding in.

Tony took Natasha's hand and twirled her around before reaching for Sharon and dancing with her. "And what about you little bit?" He asked the blonde, "What can I build for you?"

Sharon giggled, her head spinning not only from Tony twirling her around but the glass of champagne. Tony was twenty, Natasha was fifteen, and Sharon was only thirteen. It was her very first glass of alcohol. Sharon liked computers, she was saving up to buy parts to build her own, but Tony would certainly have a work room or lab in his house. She thought about what they all liked to do together and the first thing that came to mind was the late night movie marathons they used to have before the accident that changed Tony. She smiled up at him, like Natasha she was so happy to see him smiling back, a real smile, their Tony's smile. "The biggest movie room ever!"

"A top of the line home theater! That's a great idea, Shar-Bear!" Tony replied, kissing her cheek and twirling her into Natasha's arms.

They went to the Beverly Hills hotel after leaving Malibu where they changed into the clothes Tony had bought them on Rodeo Drive. Two ladies came to the suite to do their hair, make-up, and nails. While it was hard to hide the fact that Sharon was so young, Natasha looked much older than she was by the time they were finished. Tony was taking them out to dinner at one of the most expensive and hard to get to new restaurants in town. It was all very exciting, and Natasha was having a blast getting a tiny taste of Tony's lifestyle, but she couldn't help but wonder why Tony seemed to be trying so hard to impress them. She would have been just as happy spending the day at Universal City Walk and lunch at Pink's, she just wanted to spend time with her cousin.

"Nattie?" Sharon said softly as they waited on Tony to finish getting ready. "Is Tony ok?"

"Yea, Shar." Natasha reassured the younger girl. "Tony's fine. You know Tony, he loves to show off."

Sharon nodded agreement and then asked, "Nat, what if we don't like the food?"

"Then I'll order the best pizza in town and have it brought to the restaurant." Tony answered as he walked in. He looked the girls over and smiled. "You two look amazing." Holding out his arms for them to take he asked, "Are you two ready to paint the town red?"

The food was new and strange to them but they both liked it, which seemed to make Tony happy seeing them enjoy themselves. He ordered a very expensive bottle of wine and poured both girls a glass. Sharon looked at Natasha with a concerned expression. Leaning close the blonde whispered, "I don't think Aunt Peggy would let us have this."

"Just sip it, Sharon." Natasha whispered back. "It's ok, we're with Tony, and it's just wine. My Papa Martinelli lets me sip wine at Christmas and Easter."

While the girls sipped their glasses of wine Tony drank the bottle.

Tony had promised them fireworks to cap off their day of adventures, so he drove them up into the Hollywood hills, knowing that there was a private party going on that would be setting off a celebratory display. He hadn't been invited to the party, but that wasn't going to stop him from giving his girls fireworks. He haphazardly parked his car because he was a bit tipsy, grabbed another bottle of champagne from the trunk and led the girls to the back of a property with a natural spring pool. Tony poured glasses for the girls, and raised a toast to them as the fireworks began lighting up the sky above them. Then, still in his expensive suit, bottle in hand, Tony falls backwards at the edge of the pool, splashing into the water with a laugh.

"Tony!" Natasha called out, concern clouding her voice as she waited for him to break the surface of the water. When he did, smiling up at her with his stupid smirk, she sighed and shook her head. "You're an idiot, Tony."

The police officers there to check on a report of trespassing teenagers also thought Tony was an idiot, and were not impressed by his attempts to pay them off. Natasha gave them her mother's name, and the dread that had settled over her from the moment their flashlights landed on them in the dark, only got worse.

"I'm pretty sure Aunt Peggy isn't going to like that we're in jail for trespassing!" Sharon squeaked as she sat beside Natasha on a bench in the small room made of cinder block walls painted a dirty beige.

Tony moaned softly from where he was laying on the bench along the other wall. "We're not in jail. We're in holding. It's different."

"I don't think my Mum's going to see it that way, Tony." Natasha said as she put her arm around Sharon, drawing the younger girl close and letting her cuddle. "Pretty sure being brought in by the police is just going to generally piss her off."

"Relax, Nattie." Tony said with a wave of his hand. "You two just give her sad remorseful pouts and let me do the talking. I can handle Aunt Peg."

Despite his bravado and confidence Tony sat up quickly with a look of dread at the distant sound of click-clacking heels. It honestly could have been any woman walking in the distance, but he knew it was her. He knew the sound of her stride, and could just feel it in the growing knot of tension in the pit of his stomach. He tried to swallow down the sudden lump in his throat but his mouth was suddenly dry. Looking over at the girls he could see they felt it too, that anxiety that comes when you know you're in trouble, and it made him feel like shit. When the holding cell door opened and Aunt Peggy stepped in Tony shot to his feet, a hopefully well thought out response ready to go.

Peggy shot her nephew a look that made soldiers wither and retreat. "Not a single word." She warned him, her voice carefully measured, curt but firm. Then she turned to look at the girls before ordering, "Lets go. Now."

The ride home was silent and intense. The three teens sat in the backseat, Natasha holding tightly to Sharon's hand, the youngest of them fighting back tears. Sharon had never seen Aunt Peggy look so mad before, and her imagination was running wild. At the very least her aunt would probably send her back east to her mother, and she would miss out on everything they'd planned for the summer. Natasha did her best to reassure her cousin that it would be ok, but she had her own nervousness about how angry her mother was. It didn't help that when they got back to the house Peggy simply told the three of them to sit on the sofa and not to move, admitting that she was too angry to deal with them properly, and then went up to her room.

"I've never seen Aunt Peggy's face that color before." Sharon whispered.

"Me either." Natasha replied.

Tony sighed. "I have, but it was normally because of something the old man did."

"I wish she would just yell." Sharon said softly, and then groaned a bit as she leaned into Natasha. "I think I'm going to be sick. My stomach really hurts."

"Mum doesn't really yell." Natasha said softly. "Ma does, Ma yells, I'm kind of surprised she isn't yelling."

"I think she's trying to convince Aunt Peggy not to kill us." Sharon moaned.

Natasha looked down at her cousin and frowned. "Shar, if you're gonna puke, please don't do it in my lap, because then I'm gonna puke."

Stepping into the master bedroom Angie looked around for her wife. The balcony doors were open, a gentle breeze causing the curtains to flutter. Walking across the room Angie stepped out onto the balcony to stand beside her wife. "Peggy?"

"Tony's being ticketed for operating a vehicle while under the influence." Peggy told her wife as she looked out over the massive Stark grounds. "He had the girls in the car with him, Angie. And

I think the girls were drinking as well. Which means Tony gave them alcohol. Natasha seems fine, but Sharon's a bit drunk I think. She was looking pretty green on the ride home."

"We don't have the details of what happened tonight, Peggy." Angie replied as she reached for her wife's hand to hold. "And yeah, he shouldn't have given the girls booze, hell he shouldn't even be drinking yet, but I don't think Tony would have let them get drunk off their asses."

"I wish I could be so sure." Peggy said sadly. "He's so much like Howard it frightens me, Angie."

"Yeah, he's a lot like Howard." Angie nodded in agreement. "But he isn't Howard, and you know that better than anyone because you've been bustin' your ass his whole life to make sure he didn't turn into Howard." With her free hand Angie reached up to rub soothing circles on Peggy's back. "I know how much you loved Howard, Peg, hell, he was practically your brother. And I saw how much his downward spiral hurt you, and I know you still blame yourself for not being able to save him. But that's not how it's going to play out with Tony. Howard was damaged long before you met him, but you've been in Tony's life since the day he was born, he isn't going to crumble the way Howard did." Leaning in she kissed Peggy's temple. "We won't let him."

"How are you so calm right now?" Peggy asked as she leaned into her wife's embrace and comforting presence.

"Oh, believe me I'm pissed." Angie replied. "But we have to at least hear their side of things before we decide what to do with the little miscreants."

"Impeding their ability to sit properly is very tempting." Peggy huffed.

"Not saying we take that off the table, just that we hear them out before we make a final decision." Angie told her. "I'm fairly sure the girls have convinced themselves that's where this is going, I don't think it's the alcohol that has them looking so sick, it's their own worst imaginations. You were pretty pissed, hon. I think you scared the hell out of them."

"Good." Peggy nodded firmly. "We'll let them stew a bit longer and then we'll go talk to them."

Angie nodded. "We'll give ourselves some options, and then pick one after we get the full story."

Peggy nodded with a slow sigh.

When they finally made their way downstairs to the living room, the two women sat across from the three teens. Tony would try using his charm and talking in circles if they asked him to tell them what happened. Natasha knew them well, and would know just how to frame everything in a way she hoped would make things seem less troublesome than it was. So Peggy went for the weakest link in the trio. "Sharon Marie," As soon as she says the girl's name Sharon's head snaps up to look at her. "Tell us what happened today, everything the three of you did." Sharon's big brown eyes widened and she turned to look at Natasha and Tony. "Don't look to them, young lady, eyes on me please. They'll get their chance. I want to hear from you first."

Sharon swallowed, her gaze turning back to her aunt, whose own gaze was firmly fixed on her. She took a deep breath, and told her aunts everything. As Sharon talked, Peggy slowly relaxed. Up until the single glass of champagne and the single glass of wine, the day sounded like any other day out the girls would have spent with Tony. He was always buying them overly expensive things, which Peggy had put limits on, and taking them out to fancy meals was a treat for them. When Sharon said they didn't know they were trespassing, Peggy could believe the girls were aware, but wasn't so sure about Tony. When Sharon was finished, Angie asked Natasha if she had anything to add. Natasha, being Natasha, defended Tony. Both the champagne and wine were for special reasons, to celebrate Tony's new land and being at a fancy new restaurant. She even reminded her Mama that her grandfather let her have a bit of wine during the holidays.

"The difference Natasha," Angie said firmly. "Is that you are given a small amount of wine by an adult with your mothers' permission. None of you, and this includes Anthony, are of age."

Sharon gasped softly and whispered, "I've never heard Aunt Angie call him that."

Peggy raised a brow and fought back a smile. Then she brought up the next thing that needed to be addressed. "There's also the matter of Anthony driving while intoxicated and the two of you getting into the car with him instead of calling us or a taxi."

"Oh come on Aunt Peg." Tony grumbled. "I wasn't drunk. I wouldn't drive drunk with the girls in the car."

Peggy raised an eyebrow at that. Would he, has he, driven drunk while alone or with others in the car? She realized the answer was most likely yes and it frightened her. As far as the children were concerned Howard's accident had been caused by his drinking, and Peggy wasn't sure how to process Tony driving drunk believing this.

"I've gotten into the car with both of you after you've had a drink." Natasha argued, still determined to defend Tony even if it made things worse for herself.

Peggy had been glaring at Tony, ready to tell him off about how much he'd had that night, but quickly cut that heated gaze to her daughter. "After one glass of wine, or one pint, Natasha, never when we've had enough to be inebriated. Your mother and I know how to drink responsibly. Anthony, who is still underage in this country, does not and was inebriated despite his protests to the contrary." Looking back at Tony she said, "Which is why you've been issued a DUI."

"Don't sweat that, Aunt Peg." Tony waved it off. "I'll just pay and…"

"You will not just pay it off and walk away, Anthony Edward." Peggy stopped him. "The fine will be paid, yes. But you will be doing community service, which your aunt and I will find for you, and surrendering your driving privileges to me for a month."

Tony, who'd been slumped back against the couch, sprang up. "You're grounding me? Aunt Peggy! You can't do that! I'm a grown as…:"

"Finish that sentence, Anthony, I dare you." Angie cut in, giving the boy a look that made him snap his mouth shut.

Peggy turned to the girls. "You are both grounded as well. For the next three weeks the only time you leave this house is if Angie and I decide to follow through with the plans we've made for family outings."

"And don't think for a second you'll spend those three weeks sitting around doing nothing." Angie added. "We'll find things to keep you busy."

"And if anything like this happens again," Peggy added. "We will not be as lenient. Am I understood?"

"Yes Mum." Natasha replied with a nod.

Sharon nodded too. "Yes Aunt Peggy."

"Good." Peggy replied. "You two, upstairs, get ready for bed."

"We'll be up to say goodnight later." Angie said as the girls got up to do as they were told. She had to fight off a smirk as she watched them both give herself and Peggy a wide berth as they passed, making sure they were nowhere within arms reach.

Once she was sure the girls were upstairs Peggy moved to sit beside her godson. "Anthony," She sighed softly. "We'll go to the hotel in the morning and pick up everyone's things, and check you out. You'll spend the rest of your time off here with us."

"Aunt Peggy…" Tony said softly.

Peggy shook her head. "If you want us to trust you with the girls again, Tony, you'll do as I've said." She watched his eyes twitch a bit wider at the thought of not being allowed around the girls, and the slow realization of what his behavior could have cost him. "I need to have you close for awhile, Anthony, so I can make sure you're alright."

"I'm fine, Aunt Peggy." Tony shifted in his seat, unable to look at her.

"I don't think you are, sweetheart." Peggy said honestly. "I'm worried about you, Tony." She reached over and wrapped her fingers around his hand and squeezed. "Both of your parents had addiction problems, love, you know this. You need to be more mindful of how you're dealing with things."

"I'm sorry I've made you and Aunt Angie worry about me." Tony said, finally looking up at her and then over at Angie, and then back at her. "You don't have too you know."

"Don't be a knucklehead, T." Angie said as she stood and walked over to the sofa, making her wife and their nephew move over one so she could sit on Tony's other side. "You're our kid, we're gonna worry."

Peggy nodded her agreement. "We love you, Anthony, which means we will always worry. And I promise, we'll always be there for you, whether you think you need us to be or not."

When Peggy reached out to pull him into a hug Tony gladly let her, and when he felt Angie join, he relaxed. Then he was sent to his room like he was a boy, and he didn't even moan about it. He did stop to apologize to the girls, who he knew would be together in Natasha's room despite Sharon having her own. They insisted that there wasn't a need for him to apologize, but he insisted. Then he looked at Natasha, "You really need to stop defending me, Nattie. One of these days you're just going to make it worse for yourself."

"I'm always going to be in your corner, Tony. I am always going to be on your side." Natasha reassured him. "Even if it means getting into more trouble for it."

"You may regret that some day." Tony sighed and then pulled the redhead into a crushing hug.


	7. Chapter 7

Double Dates & Family Time

Padding around the bedroom of her apartment in stocking feet Sharon finished putting on her jewelry, stopping at her full length mirror to check her hair and make-up. She'd finally gotten some time off and had returned to New York to spend time with her family and friends. She'd spent all of last weekend with her aunts in Brooklyn, staying in the spare bedroom in their brownstone meant just for her. After everything that had been happening lately, it was a much needed break from the real world. She didn't indulge in allowing them to fuss over her to often, which made the times she did seek them out even more special. While she was at the brownstone Natasha had come home, and one night over pints of ice cream, Aunt Angie's leftovers, and to much wine they'd come up with the bright idea of going on a double date. Natasha was notoriously critical of the men Sharon dated, wanting to make sure they were good enough for her cousin, and they all had fallen short so far. Hopefully her new boyfriend would pass Natasha's scrutiny. The fact that she already seemed to like him had to be a plus right?

"Tell me again how you have an entire floor of Avengers Tower to live in and you're not even an Avenger?" Came a deep voice from within her bathroom. "I mean I am sort of an Avenger and I'm not allowed to live here, I'm lucky to have a room at the compound."

Sharon smiled as she turned towards the sound of the voice. "I don't have an entire floor, Natasha's apartment is on this floor too." She watched as Sam Wilson stepped out of the bathroom in a pair of purplish gray dress pants, white dress shirt, black belt and undone white tie. She bit the edge of her lip as she walked over to him and started doing up his tie for him. "You know Tony, Natasha, and I are cousins. Tony always makes sure Nat and I have space to crash in his homes. And you're not allowed to live here because Pepper said no Avengers after the whole murder bot thing."

"Right." Sam drawls out. "I got a cousin who might let me sleep on their couch for a night." He chuckled. "Ok, second question. Why am I wearing this suit again?"

"Well, for starters," Sharon let her gaze roam over him openly and smiled. "You look damn good in it." She met his gaze, he was smiling, she loved his smile. "Secondly, you agreed to go on a double date with me and Nat, and didn't see an issue with letting Nat pick out what we did."

"I didn't think going to the opera was even an option. I mean, do real people actually go to the opera anymore? What actual living person in this day and age likes the opera?" Sam huffed as he slid his hands onto her hips.

"My cousin." Sharon answers before leaning in to kiss him.

Sharon was wearing a dark purple off the shoulder cocktail dress, her hair curled into loose blonde waves. When she stepped back from the quick kiss Sam looked her over and smiled. "You look amazing, Sharon."

Sharon smiled. "We both clean up pretty good."

In Queens Natasha was smirking as she trailed a finger down May's spine instead of zipping up the back of May's dress like she was suppose to be doing. May scolded her playfully and warned her that if she didn't behave they were going to be late. Natasha relented with a pout and slowly pulled up the zipper on May's black dress, then ran her hands down her girlfriend's lace covered arms, before pressing a kiss to her shoulder before letting May's long dark hair fall back into place. Her romantic relationship with May had had its ups and downs. Natasha's work being the biggest of their issues. Dating a spy wasn't easy, dating a freaking superhero was even harder. Natasha was grateful that May had decided to at least give it another try after their break up following the Battle of New York.

"You know you're just being mean, right?" May asks as she walks over to the bed to slip on her heels and pick up her purse.

Natasha managed a rather good offended look as she replied, "How am I being mean?"

"Making Sam and Sharon go to the opera with us." May laughed. "Not everyone has our old fuddy duddy tastes in musical entertainment, Nat."

"Sharon goes with me all the time." Natasha huffed as she sat on the edge of May's bed to buckle the straps of the red heels that matched her dark red dress. Her hair, which she'd cut into a short bob much to her Ma's horror, had been allowed to dry into a very subtle natural wave.

"And Sam?" May asks as she picks up her wrap and puts it on.

Natasha smirks in a dangerous kind of way, not a Black Widow dangerous way, but most certainly in a Martinelli-Carter kind of way. "He can suck it up and enjoy himself if he honestly thinks he's good enough to be dating my cousin."

May walks over and put her hands on Natasha's shoulders. She smiles down at the other woman and laughs. "You're adorable when your protective."

"Well," Natasha replies as she puts her hands on May's hips at first. "I am codenamed after a deadly spider."

There was a teasing twinkle in May's eyes as she said, "I was thinking more like a feisty little orange kitten, all claws and sassy hissing."

Natasha had let her hands slid over May's hips to her rear end and slapped it at the tease. "Even kittens can draw blood."

May laughed, and then leaned down to kiss Natasha. When they walked out of May's bedroom and into the living room they both smiled at Peter who was sitting on the couch watching videos on his laptop until they came in. When he turned to see them the biggest smile spread across his face.

"Wow," Peter said happily. "You two look like movie stars."

May beamed at him as he walked over and kissed the top of his head. "Are you sure you'll be alright on your own all night?"

"I can still call you a ride to take you to my moms' place." Natasha offers. "I'm sure Wanda wouldn't mind you crashing movie night."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine, you guys, I'm not a little kid anymore, geesh. I can stay home by myself for one night." He absently scratched at the back of his hand where he'd been bitten by the spider. " I have pizza in the kitchen, legos, and video games, I'm cool."

"You'll call us if you need us?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah, but I won't." Peter insisted. "Go have fun, or ya know, as much fun as you can have at the opera."

"I'm taking you next time, bud." Natasha teased.

Peter pouted. "Aw, Nattie, I thought you liked me!"

May smiled with affection and delight as she watched the two banter. Then she kissed the top of Peter's head again, and told him to be good before leaving the apartment with Natasha. The two couples would be meeting at Lincoln Center, having dinner before the show, and then walking over to the Met for the performance. Putting aside torturing Sam, Natasha was actually excited about the night. It had been a long time since she'd been to the opera and a long time since she and Sharon had gotten to go out on the town together, and it had been longer still since the Carter cousins had been on a double date. The last time had been the summer they'd spent in Italy, one of the few times they had both been stationed in the same place for more than a few weeks. They had attempted to date brothers, it had not worked out, both men had been rather intimidated by them. Lorenzo had been fun while he lasted though.

Once seated at a table in the restaurant the couples started off with small talk. While Sharon and May had interacted on several occasions in the past, this was the first time May and Sam were meeting. It was also the first time Natasha was out with Sam in a social setting that didn't have Steve around in the background. Natasha wasn't overly fond of the fact that Sharon and Sam had stumbled into something romantic while they were supposed to be looking for Barnes. Sharon was meant to find Barnes before Sam could find him, but instead they had decided to work together on the matter. Natasha still harbored doubts about Steve, worrying that he would try to hide the Winter Soldier some place, which would keep him from facing justice for what he'd done. She was still struggling with separating James Barnes from the Winter Soldier, especially after a night of nightmares twisted by the reality of Howard and Maria's death and the fantasy created by Wanda about her mothers taking their place.

"So, I don't suppose this thing's going to be in english, is it?" Sam asked as he reached for his wine glass.

Both Natasha and Sharon replied, "It's in Italian."

"There will be subtitles, Sam." May reassured. "Not everyone is fluent like these two."

Sam looked a bit surprised. "You both speak fluent Italian?"

Again Natasha and Sharon spoke at the same time. "Yes."

Sam's eyes darted between the two. "Anyone ever tell you that's weird?"

May laughed. "Shining Twins vibes, right?"

"Yes!" Sam laughed.

"It gets weirder when Tony's around." May added with amusement. "They're like three peas in a pod."

Sam made the mistake of admitting that he found the idea of Tony being a normal family kind of guy strange, making the teasing remark that he'd just assumed he was grown in a lab and emerged a fully grown wiseass with an ego. The looks Natasha and Sharon gave him quickly had him apologizing. Sharon took mercy on him and changed the subject by asking about the kids. May gladly talked about Peter, and Natasha softened instantly when she spoke about Wanda.

After they finished dinner they continued their casual conversation as they walked over to the Met. Natasha had picked a performance of The Marriage of Figaro, a comedy that could be rather brawdy, as to not bore Sam to much. As they made their way inside and to their seats she gave him a cliff notes version of the story so he wouldn't be too lost during the show.

"How does a girl like you end up a serious opera fan?" Sam asks with genuine curiosity.

Natasha smiles. "My Aunt Maria. She introduced it to me when I was little. She was actually a classically trained pianist, but she stopped pursuing a career in performing when she married my Uncle Howard. Papa Martinelli liked it too and I was the only one of his grandkids who would sit and listen to it with him."

Sam smiled at that. "Baseball games on the radio." He said, a fond look coming over his face. "My grandfather and I would listen to the games on the radio instead of watching them on t.v.. Pops liked the radio better for everything, he hated television, use to say it would take away a person's imagination."

"He must have liked the old radio shows then." Natasha smiled, her memories flooded with secrets shared only with her Ma.

"Loved 'em." Sam nodded and then laughed. "The one about Captain America was one of his favorites. Pretty sure the old man had a crush on Betty Carver. Man, he'd get such a kick out of knowing who I was working with these days."

Natasha had to bite back a snort at the mention of the breathy and helpless portrayal of her mother.

Sharon put her hand on Sam's arm and looked him right in the eyes. "Don't ever mention that show to my Aunt Peggy."

Sam frowned. "Ok, but why?"

"She hates it, hate isn't a strong enough word, she loathes it." Sharon replied. "You will set her off on a tangent you really don't want to hear."

Sam wanted to know more but the lights flickered and then began to go down and soon everyone was lost to the story unfolding on stage. Opera wasn't going to be Sam's new favorite thing, but he didn't hate it. Sharon was pleased that for the most part the evening went wonderfully, and for once Natasha didn't manage to scare the crap out of her boyfriend. Remarkable really, since Sam worked with Natasha and knew what the woman was capable of. Natasha and May were glad that it finally felt like they were back on track as they worked on rebuilding their relationship after their break up. By the time the two couples were saying goodnight they were already talking about doing it again. Only this time, Sharon and Sam would pick what they got to do.

Planning a second double date wasn't easy when one couple, Sharon and Sam, lived in D.C. and the other, Natasha and May, lived in New York. The fact that one of the couples also spent their downtime searching the world for a brainwashed assassin didn't help matters either, nor did the fact that the other couple each had a teenager they were responsible for. So it took awhile for them to set something up. When the four of them found themselves all in D.C. one weekend they decided they had to do it then.

"Are you sure it's not weird asking him to babysit two teenagers?" May asked as she and Natasha finished getting ready. Her mind might have been on the two teenagers in the living room of the hotel suite they were staying in, but her gaze was firmly on the redhead in her black skinny jeans, and leopard print blouse over a black spaghetti strap tank top.

"He's one of the few people Wanda trusts." Natasha replied as she looked at May through the mirror and smiled. May had gone with jeans as well, dark blue, and a black silk wrap around top with a thick lace hem that showed off hints skin underneath. "Clint's good with kids, May. Don't worry."

"How long have we known each other?" May said as she raised an eyebrow at her girlfriend. "When do I not worry?"

Natasha laughed as she made her way across the room. "Never?"

"Exactly." May replied as she slid her fingers into the belt loops of Natasha's jeans and tugged her close. She smiled before kissing the redhead.

"Nat," Wanda said as she walked into the room, and instantly blushed at what she'd walked in on. In her embarrassment the girl shifted into Sokovian as she apologized.

Natasha smiled reassuringly at the girl as she and May stepped apart. "It's alright, poppy." The nickname had just kind of happened one day, a combination of the color of Wanda's powers, and their effect on people when she used them to manipulate a person's mind, reminded Natasha of the poppy flower. It had yet to dawn on Natasha that poppy was very close to poppet. "Just remember what I said about knocking first when you know I'm not alone."

Wanda grumbled. "Clint said I didn't have too."

"Clint's an asshat." Natasha replied, pulling the girl into a hug. "What did you need, love?"

Wanda huffed. "Sharon and Sam are here."

After grabbing her leather jacket and wallet from the foot of the bed Natasha and May followed the teen out to the living room. Peter and Clint were on the sofa with game controllers in their hands, Sharon was perched on the arm of the sofa in jeans, and a leather jacket, but it was the shirt she had on under it that caught Natasha's eye.

"Sharon Marie Carter what the hell are you wearing?" Natasha demanded.

"I told you it would piss her off." Clint snickered.

"What's wrong, Carter?" Sam teased. "Not a Dodgers fan?"

"Martinellis aren't fans of dem bums." Natasha said as she walked over to her cousin, pulling Sharon off the arm of the sofa, causing the blonde to yelp, and pulling her back towards the bedroom.

"Are you seriously going to make me change my shirt?" Sharon laughed as she was pulled along.

Sam blinked and rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't think she was serious. Sharon said if she wore it, it would piss Nat off, I thought she was joking."

"I will give you a hundred bucks to wear an L.A. Dodgers shirt around Steve." Clint said with an evil laugh.

"Pass?" Sam replied.

Once Sharon was appropriately dressed, and after the kids were reminded to behave, the two couples headed out. After the stress of the past several months, they'd wanted something a bit more low key than going to the opera. They'd agreed on dinner and trivia night at a local bar Sharon and Sam liked.

"Ok, that was not my fault." Natasha said over their shared hotpot.

"It was totally your fault." Sharon replied as she refilled everyone's drinks.

Natasha snorted like it was no big deal. "We were in Amsterdam, it was legal."

"Aunt Peggy didn't care that we were in Amsterdam and it was legal." Sharon huffed while reaching for her own glass.

"Wait," Sam cut in, his voice filled with amusement. "The two of you got stoned out of your minds in Amsterdam when you kids?"

"We weren't kids." Natasha explained. "I was nineteen and Sharon was seventeen, and it was on accident. I didn't know what we ordered in the coffee shop were eatables."

"Natasha doesn't react to well to THC." Sharon laughed. "She was paranoid as hell and freaking out. She took a swing at Aunt Peggy and nearly ended up in a canal."

"My Mum was not amused." Natasha joined Sharon in her laughter. "Sharon on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing."

Sharon laughed harder at the memory. "Aunt Peggy had to give up on yelling at us because I just kept laughing harder every time she raised her voice or used our full names. I couldn't breathe by the time she finished with all of Natasha's names."

Sam looked confused so Natasha explained, "First name, two middle names, two last names. I can tell how fucked I am by the number of names that get used."

"Using your child's full name is often enough to get your point across." May was smirking. "I throw a Peter Benjamin, at Peter and he's suddenly the sweetest boy in the world."

"I haven't had to try with Wanda yet." Natasha replied. "She's still too skittish to act like an actual kid."

When they got to the bar it was decided that the only fair way to play it was to remain in couples. According to Sam the weird cousin vibe between Natasha and Sharon would give them an unfair advantage if they play Carters vs SOs. About half way through the first round they learned that maybe they should have let the Carters be on the same team because the two women were hella competitive with each other. Sharon would explain that the competitiveness between them helped them help each other as they climbed and clawed their way through the ranks at SHIELD. Because of who founded SHIELD, it didn't have the same kind of glass ceilings other agencies had, but both women were fighting against their own desires to live up to their shared last name without relying on that last name.

"Until Steve was unthawed not even Coulson knew who I was." Natasha told them while Sam set out the latest round of drinks. "And until the Hydra attack no one knew who Sharon was, or how we were all connected."

"Do you run into any of the issues you were trying to avoid now that people know?" May asks.

"A bit." Sharon answers. "But it never lasts long. Most people still have an enormous amount of respect for Aunt Peggy, and for us as agents."

"Those who don't learn quickly they should." Natasha smirks.

"Have you met them yet, Sam?" May asks during the next break in the game. "Angie and Peggy?"

"I've meet Director Carter." Sam answers. "She's been working pretty closely with the Avengers lately."

May shook her head. "Not the same."

"It's not?" Sam replied.

Natasha snorted.

"What?" Sam's eyes darted between the two cousins.

"Nothing." Natasha was smirking as she looked over at Sharon. "You should invite Sam to a family dinner, Shar. I'm surprised Ma has insisted by now."

Sharon shot her cousin a heated look. Sharon was quite sure that if her aunts knew she was dating someone rather seriously, they would insist on having him over. But the look she gave Natasha didn't have the effect she was hoping for. It in no way deterred Natasha, but instead led to Natasha ratting her out on 'accident' one night while she and Wanda were over for dinner, which lead to a phone call the next day.

"Hi Aunt Peggy." Sharon said brightly into the phone.

"Hello my darling." Peggy replied. They chatted for a bit, catching up and Peggy making sure Sharon was alright. Then she asked, "When will you be in New York again, darling?"

"Soon I hope." Sharon replied. "Why?"

"Your aunt is itching to have a family dinner." Peggy replied. "It's been far too long since we've had one. Angie's getting rather cranky over the matter. I'd like to set up a date that works for you, Nattie, and Tony."

"Sure Aunt Peggy." Sharon smiles, warmed by the idea of a family dinner in the brownstone with her Aunt Angie's cooking, and her family's company. "I'll find out when I'll be in New York and let you know."

"Wonderful sweetheart!" Peggy replies. "And do make sure to bring your young man with you, Sharon. Angie and I look forward to getting to know Sam."

"Sam?" Sharon repeated. "Oh, um, yeah, of course Aunt Peggy, I'll see if he can make it." Sharon was going to kill Natasha!

Halfway around the world in the middle of taking down a black market weapons cartel the Black Widow starts laughing maniacally after glancing at the text displayed on the read out hovering over her forearm.

They settle on a Saturday night so things could go as late as they wanted them to without worrying about the encroaching specter of Monday hanging over their heads. Natasha arrives early that morning, alone, so she can get some time with her mothers before everyone starts showing up. She has coffee with them and lets them fuss over her. Gets advice from her Mum about acting in a more diplomatic role on behalf of the Avengers, unsure if she has the ability to do it. She insists on being just a fighter, a spy, but her mother reassures her that she is so much more. She helps her Ma start preparing for dinner, because of course Angie was going to make enough food for an army. While Angie had started on the sauce before Natasha even got there, there was plenty left to do. Chicken and eggplant parm were on the menu as the main course, but there would also be meatballs, and braciole, and fresh pasta. Natasha's first task was to wrap cheese, breadcrumbs, and parsley in thin strips of beef to make the braciole, while Angie got the parms started, and Peggy stayed out of their way.

When Clint arrived with Wanda, he was told to fill the tin tub on the back porch with ice and put the drinks on ice. Wanda helped Natasha make cannoli filling for the shells Angie had made the night before, and the chocolate cake batter. May and Peter were next, and the kids were tasked with setting out the snacks. May started helping in the kitchen, and at some point someone had put some music on. When Angie asked May to get her something from the pantry Natasha just happened to slip away as well, and it took a good ten minutes for Angie to get what she needed. Angie whacked Natasha with her wooden spoon and teased her about fooling around behind closed doors like she was a teenager. Natasha showed Wanda how to use a piece of fresh bread to taste the tomato sauce from the giant pot on the stove, and smiled as she watched the girl's face lit up.

"Told you." Natasha says proudly. "No one cooks better than my Ma."

Tony and Pepper arrive with bottles of expensive red wine, frangelico for after dinner coffee, and limoncello, because honestly Tony found it funny as hell to try and get Aunt Peggy drunk at these things.

Clint, ever the sucker for punishment, broke out the dominos and challenged Angie to a rematch. "I'm gonna bet her one of these days."

"Never gonna happen, Barton." Natasha said as she pulled up a chair to play as well.

By the time Sharon and Sam arrived the faded red brick brownstone in Brooklyn was full of music, cheerful voices, and laughter. It smelled of home, and delicious foods. It was full of warmth and welcome. Sharon had been nervous, she really liked Sam, and her family could be a lot, but as soon as she stepped into her aunts' home she relaxed.

"There you are, darling." Peggy said as she walked into the foyer to greet the last of her children and Sharon's guest. "We were starting to wonder."

"Sam didn't think I was serious when I said be ready by two." Sharon said with a laugh as she hugged her aunt in greeting.

Sam looked nervous. "You said dinner, two isn't normally a time for dinner."

"I used to agree with you, Mr. Wilson." Peggy said with a warm smile. "But then I married an Italian who thinks family dinner starts at noon and lasts until everyone's fallen asleep on the living room floor."

"Thank you for the invite, Director Carter." Sam said with a shy smile as he watched the older woman wrap her arm around Sharon.

"No titles here, Mr. Wilson." Peggy replied. "And you're welcome, now please, come in and join us." With Sharon in tow Peggy led them into the living room. Natasha, Clint, and Angie were playing their game. Wanda hovered near her adult guardians, trying to pay attention as Natasha explained the game, while trying not to be overwhelmed by the rather large gathered group of people. May and Pepper sat on the sofa with drinks in their hands watching Tony and Peter tinker with something at the coffee table that was probably going to make Peggy mad later.

When his aunt and cousin walked into the room Tony looked up with a huge smile but that smile faulted at the sight of Sam Wilson. "Bird boy, what are you doing here?"

Before Sharon or Sam could respond Natasha said, "He's defiling your Shar-Bear."

"He's what!?" Tony shot to his feet.

"Natasha Elizabeth." Peggy scolded. "Anthony sit down. Both of you behave and leave Sharon and Mr. Wilson alone."

"Just Sam is fine, Mrs. Carter." Sam said softly.

Angie was laughing as she stood and walked over to the couple. She hugged Sharon hello and introduced herself to Sam, welcoming him into their home. "Help yourself, Sam. There's plenty of food to snack on before dinner, beer and soda on the back porch, and liquor at the bar."

"Ma!" Natasha's voice suddenly called out. "Clint's cheating!"

"I am not!" Clint replied. "How do you even cheat at dominos!"

Her family has grown and changed over the years. People had gone, and their presence will always be missed. Edwin's quiet frustration at the boisterousness, and Ana's teasing him for it. Howard's charm and barking laughter, and Maria's soft smiles of adoration at his antics. Michael's ability to make Peggy laugh so hard she snorts, and the kids getting an absolute kick out of it. But people had come as well, and they each brought something new and wonderful to the mix. Pepper was the perfect foil for Tony, she was strong willed and just as charming, smart and resilient, and she loved him which is what mattered to Peggy. While she and Angie had raised Natasha to have wings and sore, May kept her rooted. The young woman made Natasha happy, and she cared for and loved her daughter in a way any mother would be pleased by. Peter adored both Tony and Natasha, he was bright and pure in a way that was refreshing given how most children seemed these days. Wanda had given Natasha someone to care for, to love and protect, and watch over in away that had curbed some of Natasha's need to save the world at her own peril. Clint has always been a welcome addition, his devotion to Natasha had cemented his place in Peggy's and Angie's hearts a long time ago. And now, hopefully, perhaps, Sharon had someone who would give her the things she needed to be happy.

"So Sam," Peggy said warmly. "Tell me about yourself."

"Be nice Aunt Peggy." Sharon begged as she handed Sam a drink.

Peggy faked a hurt expression. "I am a perfect English lady, Sharon Carter, I would never be unkind to a welcome guest in my home."

All three of Peggy Carter's children laughed, and to make matters worse, so did her wife.

Peggy huffed. "Oh bugger off the lot of you."

While Peggy did indeed grill Sam, as did Angie when she joined them after once again beating Clint in dominos, they were at least gentle about it. It was clear to everyone that the two women only ever acted out of love for their own daughter, as well as the two they considered their other children.

"Wait, stop, I don't understand." Tony says as the conversations and laughter continued at the dinner table, everyone's plates piled high with food. "You have never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

"Nope." May replied with a shake of her head.

"I haven't either." Pepper replies.

Tony looks down right offended for several seconds before looking at Sam. "Wilson?"

"Na, man, not my thing." Sam replies.

"How is it possible that we're engaged to, dating, and bonking people who have never seen Rocky Horror!" Tony is downright flabbergasted.

"Anthony!" Peggy scolds.

"Sorry." Tony replies, knowing exactly why his aunt is fussing at him. "Shagging people."

Angie reaches over and smacks the back of his head.

"What?" Tony whines, and then moves on. "So we need to go see Rocky Horror!"

"Well, at least you're all old enough to raid your own clothes this time." Peggy huffs. "Unlike the first time you three went to see that movie."

That makes Sharon's eyes light up as she remembers what her aunt is referring too. Looking over at Natasha she said, "You still owe me twenty bucks for that by the way."

Natasha blinked. "Huh?"

"We spent an hour arguing because you kept insisting that your mothers didn't have lingerie." Sharon reminded her. "I bet you twenty bucks they did, and then we found two whole drawers full in their closet."

Tony explained why they would need to borrow lingerie, telling the others that people dressed up as the characters, and a lot of that required things like garters, fishnet stockings, and corsets and bustiers. When Pepper teased him about wearing a bustier Tony smiled and said, "Of course I did, I wore one of Aunt Angie's because I was a scrawny kid and Aunt Peggy's bust was to big. Could probably fit in one now though."

Peggy choked on her wine and horsley scolded, "Anthony, really!"

Seeing her chance to get back at Natasha for ratting her and Sam out, even though it had turned into a wonderful evening, Sharon spoke up. "Tony in drag is a sight to behold, but the time we went to Toronto for Nat's birthday was the best. She decided she was going to dress as Rocky, you know, the gold shorts and nothing else."

Natasha choked on the bite of food she'd taken, to the point where Peggy had to pat her back.

Clint barked out a laugh. "You went topless to Rocky Horror?"

"It's legal in Toronto!" Natasha croaked out while glaring at Sharon.

"Isn't that the same thing you said about getting stoned in Amsterdam?" Sam asked.

Natasha glared at him. "I could kill you and no one would find the body or even know you were missing, Wilson."

"Sharon would miss me." Sam smirked.

"Who said she wouldn't be with you." Natasha replied, glaring at her cousin.

"Alright." Peggy said sternly but gently. "That's enough, new topic, moving on."

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that Stark's seen Nat topless?" Clint asked.

Natasha glared at him. "So? You've seen me topless."

"Yeah so?" Tony said as well. "She's my cousin man don't make it weird."

"They're just tits, Barton, chill." Natasha added.

Angie spoke up this time. "Alright ya brats, knock it off before poor Petey's face gets any redder and his cute little head explodes."

Natasha apologizes to Peter while May did her best not to laugh at the boy's embarrassment. Wanda asks if she can go see this Rocky Horror movie, and Natasha promised to take her and Peter another time, as to not traumatize them with Tony in drag. The conversation finally moves on when Angie threatens to send the next person to bring it up to finish dinner alone in the kitchen. Once the meal was over Peggy ordered her children to clean up while she and Angie got dessert and coffee for everyone. She, Angie, the kids, and the dates were all sitting in the living room talking when Natasha's voice rang out from the kitchen.

"Tony Stark!" Natasha yelled. "Don't you dare!"

Followed by two female squeals. Moments later Tony was running for the front door with Natasha and Sharon chasing after him, their shirts soaked from his spraying them with the kitchen sink sprayer. At the looks they were getting from their guests Peggy and Angie just shrug and laugh. Angie stands and walks to the window to see what her brats are doing and says, "It's not an official family dinner until someone gets chased out into the street."

When the night finally came to an end, after Tony and Pepper had gone, and Natasha had fallen asleep on the sofa cuddling with Wanda and Peter, Sharon decided to say her goodbyes. After hugging her aunts, and accepting the leftovers Angie made up for them, she and Sam made their way out to their waiting Uber.

"So?" Sharon asks nervously.

"You're really lucky, Sharon." Sam said warmly, smiling at her reassuringly. "Your family is kind of amazing."

Sharon beamed. "Yeah, they really kind of are."


	8. Chapter 8

December

It took several seconds for Peggy to realize the ringing she was hearing was actually happening and not part of her dream. With a soft, annoyed moan the english woman pulled away from the warmth of her wife's body pressed up against her own to roll over and reach for the phone on her nightstand. She barked a horse and grumpy greeting into the receiver, and then snapped instantly away at the sound of Nick Fury's voice. Sitting up as carefully as she could so she wouldn't wake Angie, Peggy brushed her long chestnut brown streaked with a few strands of gray hair out of her face as she asked what was going on. She listened intently and with each word Fury spoke Peggy's heart broke and dropped heavy pieces into the pit of her stomach.

"Yes, good, thank you Nicholas." Peggy said, surprising herself with how steady her voice sounded. "Continue keeping it out of the public until I say so, no one is to know until I'm ready for them to know." She was trembling, she should feel it, her whole body quivered under her paling skin. "Yes, thank you Nicholas, I appreciate that. Goodbye."

Instead of returning the phone's receiver to its cradle Peggy simply lowered her arm, placing the black piece of curved plastic in her lap, and bringing her other hand up to hold it as if it were a lifeline. She simply could not process what she'd just been told.

English was on the tip of Angie's tongue as she turned to look over at her wife to see what was happening, but the sight of her love sitting stone still, shell shocked, and pale instantly had her saying, "Peggy?" As she sat up and turned to face the other woman. "Peggy, honey, what's wrong?"

Peggy isn't aware of Angie taking the phone from her hands and places it back on the nightstand, but she is aware of Angie's hands as they wrap around her own. It was the rush of warmth from her wife's touch that made Peggy finally blink and look at Angie. She tried to say something, to repeat what Nicholas had just informed her of, but she couldn't find the words. Her eyes burned painfully as they welled with tears and when she blinked she could feel them rolling down her pale cheeks.

"English, you're scaring me." Angie said firmly as she reached for her wife's face, using her thumbs to wipe away Peggy's tears. "Peggy, baby, what's happened?"

Something in Peggy's heart kicked at her brain when Angie said she was frightened and Peggy snapped out of it. "There's been an accident, a car accident." That was the easy part. "Howard." A sob bubbles up from Peggy's chest. "Howard." She chokes out his name in a strangled whisper, her heart breaking. Another brother is gone. "Howard and Maria, Angie, they're gone."

It's a sucker punch to Angie's gut that causes her to suck in air as one of her hands flew to her mouth to muffle her own sob of grief. Then she reaches out for her wife and pulls Peggy into her arms. Peggy clings to her and for a long time the two women just sit there wrapped around each other, letting their grief wash over them.

When Peggy feels a little stronger she says, "I need to call Edwin. We need to go to Boston. I need to go to Tony. I need to get to him before anyone else does."

It says a lot that Peggy doesn't pull out of her arms as she says this, and it makes Angie tightened her hold. Angie nods and kisses her wife's temple. "Do you want us to come with you?"

Peggy shakes her head. "No, I don't want to drag Nattie all the way to Boston and back. I'll bring Tony home. I need you to pack up some things while I'm gone so we can stay at the mansion for a few days."

Angie nods. "That's a good idea. He's going to need everyone who loves him, and we're going to need each other."

She really didn't want to tell Jarvis the news over the phone so Peggy called to make their flight arrangements and then got up and dressed with the intention of going to the mansion and telling him in person. While she waited on the cab that would take her to the train station, Peggy sat on the edge of her daughter's bed, taking what comfort she could from watching her little girl sleep. They would have to tell her, and that ground at the pieces of Peggy's shattered heart because Natasha adored Howard and Maria, and it hadn't been so very long since losing Michael. For a moment, Peggy actually felt as if she might be sick. Leaning forward she kissed her baby's temple, letting her lips linger for a few extra seconds before pulling back and brushing a gossamer touch over Natasha's hair before reaching out and petting Roise. "You watch over my little poppet." She tells the red and white spaniel in her daughter's bed. Rosie then proceeds to rest her head on Natasha's shoulder. "Good girl, Rosie."

After watching the cab with her wife drive off Angie heads back inside their home and starts to pack. They'll have to take the train to New York, preferably not one full of commuters, so Angie busies her mind with picking the right time to take the train as she packs. She wants to leave Natasha sleep as long as possible, to give her precious child just a few more moments in a world where she doesn't know her aunt and uncle are gone. A world that was already starting to feel too big and too empty without Howard Stark's presence in it.

There were certain things about Natasha Carter that no one needed to know. And one of those things, was that even at her age, she was nearly a teenager now, Natasha still liked to start her day off with a cuddle from one of her mothers. As she sleepily made her way downstairs with Rosie at her side, Natasha was surprised to see several suitcases, including her own, by the front door. Were they taking a trip? Oh! Maybe they were finally going to do Christmas in Disneyworld like she'd been asking for the last couple of years. Her Ma had always been set against it, what with Christmas being a religious holiday and all, but maybe!

Any pending excitement that might have bubbled up in Natasha went flat when she stepped into the kitchen. The room was quiet, it was never quiet in the morning. Her Ma always turned the radio on or her Mum had the small televelon on the counter turned on to the news, the coffee pot guggled, pans rattled, things sizzled, silverware dinged against plates, if the windows were open birds sang, and her mothers talked in soft voices so they wouldn't wake her clear upstairs in her bedroom. The only sound that greeted Natasha's ears now was a soft sniffle coming from her mother who was sitting alone at the kitchen table staring unseeingly into a cup of coffee.

Natasha could feel the start of the clawing tenison that always settled into her stomach when something wasn't right. "Mama?"

Angie looked up, startled to see Natasha standing there. She hadn't heard movement upstairs, or Natasha walked into the room, she hadn't even noticed the clack of the dog's nails which needed to be trimmed. Angie did her best to smile. "Good morning, angel, did you sleep ok?"

"Mama," Natasha repeated, staring at her mother as her concern grew. "What's wrong?"

"Come here, angel." Angie sighed softly as she pushed her chair back a bit to make room for Natasha to sit on her lap. Angie knew Natasha wasn't a little girl anymore, and that her preteen fussed at her when she asked for such childish things, but she just really needed to have her child in her arms right now.

Natasha's hand went to her stomach as she walked over to her mother and gently sat in her lap. "Where's Mum? What's wrong? Is Mummy ok?"

"Mummy's fine, angel." Angie reassured her as she wrapped her arms around her little girl. "She's gone up to Boston with Uncle Jarvis."

"Is Tony ok?" Panic colored Natasha's voice causing it to rise in pitch.

Angie sighed, closed her eyes, and pressed her forehead to the side of Natasha's head. She couldn't tell Natasha that Tony was ok because once he found out what happened, he wouldn't be. She needed to explain everything to her daughter, but it was killing her because she was about to cause her baby pain. Taking a breath Angie raised her head up and looked into Natasha's blue-green eyes. Angie loved the fact that their eyes were so close in color. "Natasha, sweetheart," Angie prayed for strength as she spoke. "Uncle Howard and Aunt Maria were in a really bad car accident last night." She brushed at Natasha's hair and then cupped her cheek. "Baby, they're gone, they died in the crash."

"No." Natasha said as she shook her head, her chest becoming tight, her eyes started to burn. "No, Mama, no." She tried to push out of her mother's arms, off her lap, but Angie had a firm hold on her. "No, no, Uncle Howard promised to take me and Aunt Maria to St. Petersburg this spring to see the ballet!" She could feel Angie tiring to tighten her hold, to pull her into a closer embrace, but Natasha fought it. "No Mama! No! Uncle Howard promise! He promised!" Finally the tears burst and her breath hitched. "Mama, he promised."

"I know baby." Angie said, her voice shaken and her own tears falling once more at the pain her child was in. "I know, angel, I'm so sorry baby."

Natasha finally let her mother pull her close and hold her tight as she cried into the curve of Angie's neck.

He hadn't wanted to spend another holiday season on display, trotted around and shown off like a prize bitch at a dog show. He'd just wanted a normal winter break, a weekend skiing, days and nights spent shopping for his loved ones, crappy claymation martons on Aunt Peggy's floor with hot chocolate and Aunt Angie's cookies and Natasha laying next to him in a mountain of pillows and blankets, Radio City Rockettes with Natasha and his Mom, and listening to her play Christmas carols on the piano. He wanted to walk to the cottage in bare feet and get scolded by Ana before watching her light that night's candle, and having dinner with her and Jarvis. He'd wanted to see the pride on Natasha's face as she showed Ana she'd been practicing her Hebrew, because Natasha was freaky good with languages. He wanted Aunt Peggy to work her magic and make his Dad relax and enjoy his family for just a few days.

But his dad had had other plans, one gala or dinner after another, board meetings, and business lessons, nothing at all to do with the holidays and their family, only the company. Tony had had enough, he'd hit his limit, and he'd told Howard to take his plans and fuck off. He'd stay at school and then go to Aunt Peggy's in D.C. and maybe still get to see his Mom and Ana and Jarvis, but he wasn't doing his dad's stupid company bullshit. Now he wouldn't get to do any of that, none of them would, the holidays were ruined, and it was Howard Stark's fault.

"Anthony?" Peggy said softly as she reached out and brushed at Tony's shaggy hair. Any other time she'd be fussing at him to get a haircut, and he'd laugh and tease her about being old fashioned, but he would eventually get it cut properly just for her. She really wished she could fuss at him right now about getting a haircut. "Sweetheart?"

"Was he drunk?" Tony asked. It was the first thing he'd said since his Aunt Peggy and Jarvis told him his parents were dead.

Peggy looked across the room at where Jarvis stood. The fact that that was Tony's first question made Peggy feel as if she'd failed not only him somehow, but Howard as well. The look Jarvis gave her was a stern but caring one that told her not to blame herself for any of this. Turning back to Tony she said, "We don't know yet, honey. We won't know all the details until we get the medical examiner's report."

"I need to know if he killed my Mom, Aunt Peggy." Tony said firmly as he finally looked up and into his godmother's eyes. "Whatever the truth is, please don't lie to me."

That sliced at Peggy's heart and she found herself unable to respond.

"Your godmother has only ever acted in your best interests and well being, young man." Jarvis says firmly. "Do not call into question her integrity regarding you, now."

It was rare for Jarvis to take a tone like that with him and it made Tony's eyes widen when he realized why. "Oh, Aunt Peggy, I'm sorry I didn't mean…"

"It's alright Anthony." Peggy reassured her boy as she put her arms around him and pulled him close. "I understood what you meant."

In his godmother's arms Tony couldn't ignore the floor of pain waiting to overtake him. "They're really gone, Aunt Peggy?"

"Yes my love they are." Peggy replied as she held him tighter. "I'm so sorry, baby."

Tony couldn't stop the tears as he curled into her. His Mom, his Dad, gone just like that.

Fresh tears welled in Peggy's dark eyes as she held her boy as tigherly and as close as she could. As those tears rolled down her cheeks she kissed the top of Tony's head and whispered. "I'm here, love. I'm right here baby. I got you."

Jarvis crossed the room and reached out to put his hand on Tony's shoulder, and then he ran his fingers through the boy's hair, while he took one of Peggy's hands in his and squeezed it. His own eyes were red, evidence that he'd cried at some point, but never in front of anyone but Ana. After a few moments he cleared his throat, let go of Peggy's hand, and moved away to start packing up Tony's things so they could take their boy home.

Peggy wasn't going to push Tony, she would let him go at his own pace, so she simply sat there holding him until he pulled back from her. Then she reached for her purse, took out her handkerchief, and started cleaning the tears from his blotchy red face. When she was finished she held his face in her hands and pulled him close to kiss his forehead. "Let's go home, my sweet boy. Aunt Angie and Nattie, and Ana, will be waiting for us at the mansion."

Tony didn't know what to do with himself on the trip back to New York. When there were a lot of people around, like at the airport, he kept his distance from Peggy and Jarvis. He tried his best to look stoic like his English godparents, to come across as the Stark heir his father wanted him to be. But on the private jet or in one of the cars taking them to and from the airport, he curled into Peggy's side. It didn't feel real yet, and yet seeing his godparents' red, puffy eyes, and hearing the slight wheeze in Peggy's normally steady breathing, made it all too real. The only reason why these two people who he'd loved and looked up to all his life would be so shaken, was because they'd lost someone they loved.

"Aunt Peggy," Tony said softly on the plane.

"Yes my darling?" Peggy said as she combed her fingers through Tony's hair.

"I'm sorry too." Tony replied.

Peggy blinked. "Sorry for what, love?"

"He was your brother." Tony told her as he sat up. He'd been lying with his head in her lap and wanted to look her in the eye. "You loved him, both of them, too. I'm sorry you've lost another brother."

"Oh my darling." Peggy's breath hitched as she pulled Tony into her arms again. "My sweet boy. I do love you so."

"I love you too, Aunt Peggy." Tony let his tears come again as he clung to her.

When they arrive at the mansion Jarvis busies himself with unloading Tony's things and taking them inside. Peggy wants to tell him to stop, he doesn't have to do that right now, but she knows it's the only thing keeping him held together. When they walk into the house it's quiet and a little cold, but there is a welcoming scent in the air that makes Peggy smile as she hugs Tony to her side. "Aunt Angie's found the kitchen."

Tony bobs his head as he allows his godmother to steer him towards the casual living room, the one they were actually allowed to use as an actual lived in room. Ana is sitting on the loveseat with Natasha who is curled into her own godmother's side. Peggy and Ana exchange heartbroken, understanding, and grateful looks, and then Ana nudges Natasha gently. "Little star, look who's home."

Natasha opens her eyes to see her mother and shoots across the room like the little shooting star her godmother thinks of her as. "Mummy!"

Peggy gives a little oof as her daughter collides with her, and quickly adjusts her stance so they don't topple over, while Natasha wraps her arms around her tighter than Peggy imagined the girl could. It stirs up another round of tears but at this point she's afraid of dehydration. "It's alright, poppet, it's ok, I'm here my love. I'm alright." Peggy wraps her arms around her daughter and kisses the top of Natasha's head. "Mummy's alright, darling, I just had to go fetch Tony."

Tony's not ok seeing Natasha so upset and he starts to tremble and fidget beside his godmother until he's gently pulled into another pair of loving arms. "Hi Ana."

"Hello dearest heart." Ana says softly as she hugs him.

The two women stay that way, holding their heartbroken children in their arms, until Jarvis and Angie join them. Angie walks over to her wife and daughter and kisses Peggy's temple while she combs her fingers through Natasha's hair. Then she gets her turn to hold Tony in her arms and do her best to reassure him that things will be alright. Jarvis asks to speak with Peggy, telling her that they should begin getting things in order. Peggy nods, leaving the children in the care of Angie and Ana who guide them to the kitchen. They will have a public memorial, a semi-private invitation only funeral, and a private family only burial. Peggy was instantly protective of Tony, insisting that he not be forced into parading his grief around for the public, nor for shareholders and business partners. Jarvis agreed, and helped to make sure everything was finalized and set before outside forces could interfere. Peggy also handled the press and the public announcement of Howard and Maria's accident and resulting death.

As soon as the word was out publicly Obadiah Stane descended on the Stark mansion like an ogre, demanding to know why he hadn't been informed sooner, and trying to take control of everything and everyone. Peggy put him in his place quickly, "You run the company Mr. Stane, not this household. You were Howard's business partner, perhaps a friend, but you are not family. Mind your place, Mr. Stane, or I shall have you removed from it all together."

Stane was so angry he turned red as he tried to argue but he didn't have a leg to stand on when Howard's lawyers showed up. Peggy was named Tony's legal guardian, and executor of the trust that guarded Tony's inheritance until he was twenty-five. That just further enraged Stane, and Tony was fairly sure Obie was going to have a heart attack. Stane left only after Tony insisted. "Please Obie, I just want to be alone with my family. I can't deal with company shit right now."

"Are you sure kid?" Stane asked. "I thought that you considered…"

"You were my Dad's friend." Tony cut in. "Thank you for that. He wasn't always easy to be friends with. We'll see you at the memorial. I'm sure your assistant already has the details. Goodnight Obie."

Once Peggy was sure Obadiah Stane was gone she growled out, "Insufferable blowhard."

It got the tiniest of smirks from Tony before the boy retreated back to the living room until Angie took Natasha up to bed, and then he roamed the house. When he stumbled upon Jarvis in his parents bedroom he helped Jarvis pick out what to bury his mother in, but stopped his godfather from including her rosary.

"Don't you think she would like to have it with her?" Jarvis asked as he watched the boy he helped raise sit on the bench at the foot of his parents bed running his fingers over the polished beads.

Tony shook his head. "I think she'd like what I have in mind better." Looking up at Jarvis he asked, "Do you still have the contact info for that marble sculpture in Italy that Dad used?"

"I do." Jarvis nodded.

"Do you think he'd be able to make a ballerina?" Tony asked next.

Jarvis instantly knew where Tony was going and his chest, despite his painful heart, swelled with warm pride. "I do indeed think he would make a beautiful ballerina sculpture for little Miss. Carter. Your mother would be very touched by the gesture and incredibly proud of you, Tony."

Making his mother proud had never been an issue. It had always been Howard where Tony had fallen short. Standing, Tony put the rosary in his pocket and thanked Jarvis before leaving the room. When his aunts started fussing at him about trying to get some sleep, Tony made a show of going up to his room and getting ready for bed. Ana brought him warm milk with cinnamon and nutmeg, and several cookies from the last batch she'd baked. Angie made sure his water glass was full and asked what he wanted for breakfast. Peggy just sat with him for awhile, sipping her tea and letting him get lost in some new coding for a touch screen device he was working on. It wasn't until he was sure that everyone was settled into their rooms and beds for the night that he got up and started roaming the massive house alone again. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he now lived in a world that didn't include his parents.

It was well after midnight and Natasha was exhausted from the emotional day, but after startling awake and finding herself in a strange bed in a room that was not her own, she couldn't fall back to sleep. She went to her mothers' room which was next to the one she was staying in, but they weren't there, so she went looking for them. She had never felt like her uncle's massive house was frightening or daunting before, but it felt different now. As Natasha wandered the dark hallways she felt as if the house was now empty and cold despite being full of her family. She tried to think of where her mothers would be if they were at home so Natasha looked for them in the living room, the kitchen, and then thought perhaps the library or a study. It took a while to search but Natasha managed to find her way to her uncle's study, and sure enough a crack in the door spilled a sliver of light out into the hallway.

"Tony asked me if you were drunk." Peggy's voice carried out into the hall. It was soft, thick with emotion, her accent coming out stronger than it had in ages. "I don't know what to tell him because I don't know yet, Howard. I hope you weren't."

Natasha remembered her mother's voice sounding like that after her Uncle Michael died, the unsteady quiver, the almost breathlessness of it, set the girl sliding down the wall outside the door to sit on the floor. She wasn't sure what else to do. If her Mum couldn't be strong in the shadow of her grief, what hope was there that Natasha could be? She hadn't even really been able to face Tony, to be there for him the way she felt she could be.

Peggy's laugh was humorless, bitter, and sad. "Here I am hoping to god you weren't drunk while I pour another from a bottle I'm sure cost more than my bloody house." There was a pause, a shadow moved across the light steaming into the hallway. "I know the last few years we weren't seeing eye to eye on a lot of things, mostly when it came to Anthony, but I have always loved you as a brother, Howard. That never changed, it never faltered. I hope you knew that."

Shifting so she could see through the crack in the door Natasha saw her mother standing by the fireplace looking at a portrait of her uncle handing over the mantel. Was it ok to be mad at someone and be sad about them dying all at the same time? Because right now Natasha's heart was painfully heavy with grief and sadness, but she was also starting to feel angry at her uncle for making her mother sad too.

Deciding that it was probably best that she not get caught spying on her mother Natasha forced herself up off the floor and headed back down the hallway away from her uncle's study. She decided to head back towards the kitchen since her mama hadn't seemed to be in the study with her mum. She wasn't sure if her mum would have been openly talking to her uncle's portrait if anyone, even her mama, had been in the room with her. As she reached the bottom of the stairs Natasha heard a sound coming from the formal living room so she headed that way. Tony was sitting on the piano bench, his fingers hovering over the keys as if he were afraid to touch them. She didn't say a word she just walked over and sat beside him on the bench, and rested her head on his shoulder as she reached for his other hand, lacing their fingers together.

"It's ok to feel sad and mad and everything else, Tony." Natasha says softly after a few minutes of sitting together in silence. "I'd be sad, and mad, and all kinds of things if it were my moms." She pauses for a moment and stares at the sheet music in front of them, her mind flashing back to what startled her awake in the first place, then lowers her voice even more. "I have bad dreams about it sometimes, about my moms going away forever. My birth parents died when I was born, and Uncle Michael, and now… I don't know what I'd do if I lost them." She looks up at Tony, who's finally looking at her. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you either."

Tony put his arm around her and pulled her close. "I ain't going anywhere Nattie."

"That's not a promise you can keep Tony." Natasha replies. "Bad things happen for no reason."

"Then I'll just have to invent something to fight off the bad things." Tony reassured her, and as he hugged her he added, "I'm not going to lose anyone else I love."

Natasha stayed by Tony's side for the next several days. If she was awake, she was at Tony's side. If she felt like everything was becoming too much for him she would take his hand and pull him away, and when people tried to stop her, to keep Tony there for whatever reason, her mothers, Jarvis, and Ana were quick to step in and ask them to back off. The memorial and funeral had felt strange to Natasha, nothing like the services they'd had for her Uncle Michael. Sitting between her Mama and Tony, her Mum on Tony's other side, the girl couldn't help but wonder who these people were to her Uncle Howard, and why her Aunt Maria seemed to be almost an afterthought to them. It wasn't until the private burial that it felt less cold and formal, when it was just their family saying goodbye.

After the burial Tony just floated in a haze for a few days, until one morning he announced that he didn't want this to ruin the holidays, and he didn't want to keep feeling like crap all the time, so he'd made arrangements for them all to spend holidays at Disney because, "Your not allowed to be sad in the happiest place on earth, right Nattie?"

"Right." Natasha replied.

And to Tony's surprise no one, not even Aunt Angie, argued.


	9. Chapter 9

Multi-Colored Foam

Several years from now people would have a better understanding of the fact that adults could also suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder just as much as children did. After all those children would grow up, and many would not grow out of it. But for now, all anyone knew was that Howard had the attention span of a gnat, and couldn't be still for very long. He'd been fine before dinner, catching up with everyone and telling Peggy about all of his latest ideas that did not pertain to work. Their wives had a strict no SHIELD talk at family dinners, and neither of them were foolish enough to cross their wives. He made it through dinner just fine, focusing on the wonderful food and wine, and conversation around the table. After dinner however, as everyone gathered in the drawing room for drinks, coffee, tea, and dessert Howard started to feel the itch of needing something more to do than just talk to his family and friends.

He'd promised Maria no work, he promised he would spend the whole evening with their gathered loved ones, but he couldn't just sit around any more. So while the women and Jarvis were engaged in a conversation Howard made eye contact with the kids. Once he had their attention he jerked his head towards the door, wiggled his eyebrows, and smirked. Once they understood Tony's and Natasha's faces lit up. Howard slipped out of the room first, followed by Tony, and finally Natasha. Once the three of them were in the hallway Howard beamed, "Who wants to play in the lab?"

Howard wasn't stupid enough to take the kids to one of the basement labs that could possably lead to them getting hurt. If Tony were to get hurt Peggy would maim him, but if Natasha were to get hurt, they'd never find his body. So he took them to one of his lesser used labs where they could play around with some child friendly experiments. The first thing they did was build makeshift hovercrafts which Tony and Natasha used to race around the basement, because Howard didn't see anything wrong with putting the kids in chairs on top of thick plywood that hoovered two to three feet off the ground. Thankfully no one was hurt and the kids were having fun, and so was Howard. He couldn't remember the last time he'd just had fun with science for the sake of having fun.

Tony was laughing, smiling this great big smile, and Natasha was looking at him like he was the most amazing person in the world. It was very close to the way she looks at her mothers or the Jarvises, and it hit Howard right in the chest. He knew he didn't spend nearly enough time with Tony, and the fact that his son was eating this up the way a man in the desert drinks water, that also hit him in the chest. So he let himself get a little carried away.

"What next?" Howard asked the kids.

Keeping in mind that Natasha was much younger and not into science the way they were Tony suggested, "I bet Nattie would love the exploding foam experiment, Dad!"

"I bet she would too!" Howard agreed. "I wonder how much we could make all at once? Think we could fill the room?"

"Let's find out!" Natasha cheered.

"Atta girl, Tasha!" Howard beamed.

Howard and Tony gathered everything they would need. Howard explained the science behind the experiment, and Tony translated so his younger cousin could actually understand. Natasha went a little cross eyed and giggled when Uncle Howard put goggles on her. They set up the largest basins they could find along all for walls, each with a different color, and then started adding chemicals. Once they started the chemical reactions it was a race to get all of the basins going at once.

Upstairs Peggy was becoming more and more uneasy and Angie noticed. Reaching over she put her hand on her wife's thigh as she asked, "You ok, English?"

"Fine darling." Peggy replied with a half hearted smile. "It's just, Howard and the children have been gone for awhile."

Maria blinked at Peggy's words, and then looked around as if just now noticing her husband and son and niece were missing. "The children must have gotten bored of us and gone off to play. As for Howard," She sighed softly. "I did ask that he not work tonight. I apologize."

Peggy reached across the space between them and patted Maria's knee. "Don't apologize for Howard, Maria. We all know what he's like, and lord help us all, we still love him despite ourselves."

The two women who loved Howard Stark most, his wife and his sister, smile at each other before Peggy stands and insists they all carry on without her while she goes in search of their children. She had an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach, not a bad feeling, but certainly one that required checking on her kids. There was just too much for the two of them to get in to together in the Stark mansion, especially given Tony's habit of using Natasha's tiny fingers to help him with one of his robots. The last time they left those two alone for too long Natasha had little burns on her fingers from helping Tony rewire Dum-E.

"Dad!" Tony said, slightly panicking. "It's not stopping."

"I noticed, Tony." Howard replied. "It's fine, it'll stop, it can't go on once all the chemicals are used up."

"The foam's getting everywhere, Dad." Tony's dark eyes darted around the lab in amazement as he watched the ever expanding multi colored foam spreading out from the basins and inch across the floor.

Howard was taking notes as a hundred different uses for this flew through his thoughts. "The room can be hosed down, kid, it's no big deal. You spend too much time with Jarvis and Peg. Stop worrying so much and have a little fun with it."

Meanwhile Natasha was cackling happily as she watched the foam creep over her shiny black shoes. "Hey Tony! Watch!"

Tony turned his attention to his cousin, her long red hair pulled back in a braid, wearing a pretty dress that was white with flowers on it. She grinned at him and then proceeded to slide across the floor in the foam with a wild laugh. He blinked, and then smirked. He wanted to try that! With Howard distracted, and unphased by what was happening, the two kids didn't see any problem with playing in the foam as it filled the small space. Sliding around on the slippery floor ended with them both falling, covering their clothes in the foam. Then Tony discovered the foam could be molded into balls, which he processed to throw at Natasha, who then started throwing it back. Their exuberant laughter finally snapped Howard out of his head, and he couldn't help but join in. When was the last time he'd played with his son? Howard felt shame creeping over him, but he didn't allow that to hinder the smile on his face as he allowed himself to be tackled into the foam.

"What the bloody blue blazes is going on in here?" Peggy demanded from the doorway of Howard's lab. She watches with wide eyes as two small foam covered heads pop out of the mess, followed by a much larger one. As she takes in the three of them, clothes, hair, and skin stained from the colorful foam filling the room, Peggy isn't sure what to make of it all. "Howard Anthony Stark why are my children multi-colored and covered in foam! That had better be non-toxic or so help me god…"

"It's fine, Pegs, the foam's safe." Howard reassured while blowing pink foam from his mustache. Then he points at Tony. "And I'm pretty sure that one's mine, Peg."

Peggy snorted defiantly as she crossed her arms over her ample chest. "You keep telling yourself that, Stark." Though her focus is on Howard she can see everything the children are doing, which meant Natasha wasn't being as sneaky as she thought she was being. The girl had a handful of foam and was preparing to throw it at her. "Natasha Elizabeth, no."

"Natasha Elizabeth, yes." Howard said with a laugh as he bobbed his head approvingly at the girl's train of thought.

"Howard!" Peggy scolded.

"Untwist your panties, Peg." Howard said before throwing foam at her himself since getting middled named had taken the wind out of Natasha's sails. "The kids are just having some fun.

Peggy's big brown eyes looked down at the large vibrant green splash of foam now staining her white blouse.

"Uncle Howard," Natasha said when she saw the look her mother gave her uncle when she looked up from the foam on her shirt. "That's not a good look, Uncle Howard. That look ends with a smack on the butt."

Howard laughed hard as he picked Natasha up and kissed her cheek. "I'd like to see the ol' gal try."

"Howard!" Peggy scolded again, making the man jump, and then a slow smirk spread across her face. "Howard, darling, you can't get out of the room without going past me."

"That's what you think, Peg!" Howard laughed again before slipping and sliding across the room to a cabinet where he flicks a switch, and a hidden door opens beside it. "Come on, champ!" He calls out to Tony while he carries Natasha in his arms. "Aunt Peg can't smack anyone if she can't catch us."

Natasha cackled again as she waved over her uncle's shoulder. "Bye Mummy!"

Peggy couldn't make it across the room safely with the foam coved floor and the heels she was wearing, so she just stood there watching in wonderment as the door closed behind Howard, Tony, and her daughter. Shaking her head she couldn't help but laugh. Had she ever seen Howard smile like that? When was the last time she'd heard him laugh like that? For just those few precious minutes he looked like the young, carefree, untroubled man he was before Steve died, the charming brilliant man she had knocked into the Thames for trying to kiss her months before they ever meet Steve Rogers. They'd had a mutual respect for each other almost right from the start, and as they began working together they became friends. One evening as Howard walked her home to her flat in London, he tried to kiss her. There'd been nothing sleazy about the attempt, and in all honesty he'd startled her more than anything, but she still had made it clear to him they were just friends and Howard had been fine with that. While handing him a towel and an ice pack for his shiner in her flat after they'd fished him out of the river had been the first time Peggy had heard him laugh that carefree boistois laugh of his, and it had reminded her so much of Michael that it had wormed Howard Stark into her heart.

Making her way back upstairs to the drawing room Peggy smiled warmly as she said, "Mr. Jarvis, if you would be so kind as to tell me where the secret passages in Howard's labs lead to, I would be ever so grateful."

"Um, yes, of course Ms. Carter." Jarvis blinked. His gaze dropped to the large bright green stain on his friend's blouse, and then it jumped back up to meet her eyes.

The tunnels lead to several places on the grounds, including an auxiliary garage where Howard could hide and tinker on race cars or use one of his back up cars to escape. There was also a nice little set up with a t.v., leather couch, stocked fridge, and a bar. After setting out jars of candy and grabbing three bottles of Coke, Howard fell onto the couch with a kid on either side of him. He handed them each a soda and then put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back. "We'll just wait here until Peggy cools off."

Tony was on cloud nine. He hadn't spent time with his father like this in a very long time. Natasha was giggy, because it felt like she was being naughty with Uncle Howard to protect her, and it was thrilling. With the exception of her Uncle Dum Dum, none of Natasha's uncles were much for cuddling. Uncle Jarvis, while sweet and doting, was very much English. And Uncle Howard, well, physical affection seemed to make him uncomfortable, not that Natasha understood that in those terms. What Natasha understood was that Uncle Howard didn't hug Tony the way her moms hugged her, the way they hugged Tony. And when she hugged her Uncle Howard, he got all stiff and only hugged her back for a second or two. Natasha, at her young age, just thought Uncle Howard was really bad at hugging. But in that moment, none of that mattered because Natasha cuddled into Howard's side with the biggest smile on her face.

Howard stiffened a little, unsure of what was happening at first when Natasha pressed up against his side. His eyes went a little wide, but then he looked down at the girl's face, and the way she was smiling up at him, and he relaxed. He put a tentative arm around her shoulders which made her cuddle closer, and his heart skipped a beat. He smiled, a huge smile, and then he put his arm around Tony's shoulders too, which startled the boy at first. Then Tony relaxed and leaned into his dad, his smile bright and full of joy. Years from now after Howard was gone, Jarvis would create photographs of this moment from the surveillance footage and present them to both Tony and Natasha. Natasha's would be displayed in her room from the moment she receives it, but it would take Tony a little more time to take it out of hiding and hang it on a wall in a cabin by a lake.

After they finished their sodas Howard sighed. "I should probably get you two back in the house and cleaned up."

Natasha held up her hands and laughed. "I'm green!"

"Your hair looks purple, Nattie." Tony chuckled. "There must be blue dye in your red hair."

"Peg's gonna to kill me." Howard laughed as she looked down at his multi-colored goddaughter. While he was sure the dye had been non-toxic, he wasn't all together sure how washable it would be.

Rather than taking the tunnels back Howard decided it would be nice to walk across the grounds. Natasha had her little hand in his and he wasn't quite ready to surrender the feeling that invoked in him. If he were being truthful with himself, he'd admit he wasn't ready to give up this time alone with his son and goddaughter just yet. Who knew when, or even if, he'd get another night like this. The sad part was that he was fully aware that he could have tons of nights like this, if only he'd allow himself to be more of the man he was tonight and less of the man he was slowly watching himself turn into.

The multi-colored trio made it to another tunnel exit, a garden shed, when they were stopped in their tracks.

Peggy flicked on her torch, lighting up the area where she'd been laying in wait. "Stark."

"Now, Peggy, don't do anything rash…"

Before Howard could finish his sentence he and the children found themselves being hosed down by the garden hose Peggy had had hidden behind her back. And for a few minutes on some back corner patch of lawn on Howard Stark's massive property a chosen brother and his sister played with their children, filling the warm summer's night air with pearls of laughter and playful squeals. Creating a memory that would last a lifetime.


	10. Chapter 10

Weekend with Tony

She waited patiently for just the right moment to cut into the relaxed conversation around the dinner table, a natural lull and perfect opening to ask for what she wanted. Natasha needed to time her request correctly to optimize her chance of getting it approved. Asking permission to do something was hit or miss for Natasha these days. Probably because the last two times she'd been granted permission to go out she missed curfew, and when she was told no she snuck out and went anyway. Natasha has never in her life feared her mothers, feared the consequences she'd have to face sure, but never her mothers. She came close the night she climbed in through her bedroom window to find her mother sitting in her chair waiting on her.

It was out of character for her, but ever since Homecoming and what happened that night Natasha couldn't shake something her Mum had said that night. While blaming herself, Peggy had told her none of it had been her fault because she was young and inexperienced, so Natasha wanted to get more experience in life so she wouldn't be such a sucker again. So here she sat having dinner with her mothers waiting for the perfect opening and when it came around she was quick to speak up, "Tony's in New York."

Peggy hummed softly as she reached for her wine glass and nodded. "Now that he's twenty-one, Stane wants to start introducing Anthony to more of the business side of the company instead of leaving him alone in research and development. I'm going to take the train into the city next week to be present at Anthony's first board meeting."

Angie snorted as she cut her roast chicken into smaller pieces. It was Sunday, Peggy had made a roast chicken with all the trimmings, and they were sitting together at the dining room table just as they did every Sunday. "Stane will just love that."

"Stane can kiss my…"

"Peggy!" Angie laughed with a shake of her head and an amused look on her face. "Not at the dinner table."

Natasha blinked, an amused look on her own face, and then she bit her lip. "I have a long weekend next week and I was hoping I could spend it with Tony. I haven't seen him since the holidays. I miss him."

Peggy looked at her daughter for a long moment and then over at Angie. She and her wife held a silent conversation before Peggy replied, "We know you do, and we'll think about it, poppet."

Unlike with some parents who say that just to get their child to drop something, Natasha knew that her mothers actually meant it. She did wonder for the rest of dinner if they needed to talk because of her recent behavior or Tony's, and all she could hope was that they didn't think too hard about either. When Peggy returned from the city following the Stark Industries board meeting she told Natasha that she could spend the weekend with Tony, saying that it would be good for him to have her around. It made Natasha curious as to what happened at the meeting but her mother couldn't or wouldn't say.

That Friday after school, which Natasha only had a half day of, her mothers picked her up to take her to the train station. There had been a debate on whether or not they would go all the way to New York with her, but in the end they agreed to just go as far as the station.

"Call us when you get to New York." Peggy told Natasha as the train pulled into the station and began loading.

"And text when you get to Tony's." Angie added.

Natasha laughed. "Geesh, you two, I'm just going into the city for the weekend. What are you going to be like when I go off to college?"

"Wrecks, we're going to be emotional bulbering wrecks." Angie replied honestly. Just the thought of sending her angel off to college in the near future could bring tears to Angie's eyes.

After rolling her eyes at her Mama, Natasha gave both of her mothers a hug and kiss before boarding the train. As promised she called her mothers when she arrived, even texting her Mum a picture of the driver Tony had sent to pick her up. Tony wouldn't stay at the mansion on his own. He would stay there if the Jarvises were with him or when the family gathered there together, but never when he was in New York on his own. When Peggy told him Natasha wanted to spend the weekend with him Tony thought about moving to the Plaza and booking their Royal suite, a $40,000 a night suite, just because one of Natasha's favorite books when she was little had been Eloise. In fact for Natasha's tenth birthday Howard had given her a week in the Eloise suite, all three birthday party options with all of her friends and classmates, and a family only high tea in The Palm Court. His Aunt Peggy had relaxed her strict rule about not spoiling her child with frivolous expense because it was a milestone birthday.

Tony was not going to repeat anything Howard did so he stayed at the Mandarin Oriental but upgraded to their Presidential suite, a bargain at $36,000 a night. When Natasha walked into the main room Tony was lounging on the sofa in a pair of ripped jeans and a band t-shirt, looking out of place in the opulence of the room, and yet right at home because he was actually in his element. "So what do you think, Nattie?"

"I think if Mum knew how much money you're spending on a hotel room she'd take back control of your trust fund." Natasha answered as she looked around with wide eyes.

"What's the point of having more money than god if I can't spoil my favorite red headed cousin once in awhile?" Tony beamed as he hopped off the sofa. "RIght Happy?"

"Whatever you say, boss." Replied the man who'd picked Natasha up at the train station and carried her bags up to the room.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the man. "Happy?"

"Happy Hogan, personal bodyguard and all around cool guy." Tony said as he moved across the room towards them.

"Your name is Happy?" Natasha asked with an inquisitive eyebrow raise.

"It's Harold actually." Happy replies.

Natasha would have commented but found that hard to do with Tony wrapping her up in a hug and lifting her off the floor to spin her around. The action made her squeal and giggle as she hugged him back, burying her face in his neck. She'd been missing Tony like crazy, but she didn't realize just how much until she found herself in his embrace. Tightening her arms around him she sighed softly, "I missed you too, Tony."

After asking Happy to put Natasha's things in her room Tony led Natasha over to the sofa and pulled her down to sit with him. He smiled as he asked, "So what do you wanna do this weekend, Nattie-cat?"

Natasha groaned. "Not have you calling me Nattie-cat for a start."

Tony pouted. "Fine." But then his face lit up again at the prospect of spending the next several days with his cousin. "But seriously, what do you want to do? Anything you want, just name it, and we'll do it."

The teen bit her lip for a moment, unsure if Tony would understand, and if he did, if he would agree to it. While Tony was known to party hard while on his own, he had been annoyingly responsible when it came to her and Sharon since the L.A. incident. "I was kind of hoping, well, see, I was sort of hoping to tag along and follow your lead this weekend."

Tony stared at her, blinked slowly, and then stared at her a little more. Was she asking what he thought she was asking? Did his sweet little well adjusted cousin want to party? Slowly a smile spread across his face. "Why Natasha Carter, are you asking me to take a sixteen year old out for a wild weekend?"

"Yes." Natasha squeaked nervously.

"You know if we get caught Aunt Peggy is going to kill us." Tony advised.

"Yeah, and, you know what never mind." Natasha shook her head, suddenly rethinking this. "I don't want to get you in trouble. You promised after L.A. that you wouldn't do dumb shit with me or Sharon around."

Tony watched Natasha for a few moments. She really wasn't the type of kid who would do something like this without reason. Perhaps it was a sudden rebellious streak that she was experimenting with, or perhaps there was more to it. But if she wanted to explore a bit of the wild side of being a teenager, well, maybe it would be better if she did it with him? He could look after her, Happy could look after them both, and maybe Natasha could get whatever she needed from it and get it out of her system. "You're going to need a fake i.d."

Natasha blinked. "What? Really? I had one but I don't anymore. Ma found it, and surprisingly Mum was the overly dramatic one who threw it in the fireplace before grounding me for three weeks." She groaned as she leaned back into the sofa, letting her head fall back. "I've been grounded a lot lately."

"You?" Tony asked, eyebrows raised in genuine shock. "So is this like a rebel without a cause kind of thing or do you need to talk about something?"

"I'm young and inexperienced." Natasha told him with a grunt. "I can't do anything about being young…"

"But you can do something about the experience." Tony nods his understanding. "Even if getting that experience lands your ass in hot water with your moms?" Natasha nods and Tony frowns a little. Natasha doesn't look for trouble, she doesn't easily accept getting into trouble unless on his behalf, but here she is willingly looking for it even if it ends up getting her grounded again or worse. If Natasha were too put her well being in jeopardy, Tony was fairly sure age wouldn't stop his aunts from turning the girl over their knee, so he would have to make damn sure Natahsa didn't go too far with this. "Got a name in mind for that i.d?"

"Natalie Rushman." Natasha replied with a smile.

Tony snatched up his phone while calling out, "Happy! Get the car!" Then he smiled at Natasha. "Well, Natalie Rushman is going to need a wardrobe, so up and at 'em, Nat! Oh! That's why you picked that name isn't it?"

Natasha laughed as she nodded.

"Clever girl." Tony said approvingly.

Tony reassured Natasha that they had plenty of time to get ready for a night out, that nothing good ever happens before ten o'clock. So they had time for shopping and hair, make-up, and nails, all his treat, and anything she wanted as long as she kept in mind that she did in fact have to return home to her mothers at the end of the weekend. By the time she was ready for a fun filled weekend with her cousin Natasha's hair was a much lighter shade of red, and shorter by at least six inches, with bangs. Her nails were long and bright red to match her lipstick. The rest of her make up was dark, but not overly so. She picked out two new outfits, a black mini dress with long lace sleeves and lace trim at the neckline, and knee high leather boots. As well as blue leather pants, with a white button down and short blue leather jacket. Natasha was in love with the jacket. She'd been in love with leather jackets since she was little and used to wear her Mum's old brown bomber around the house when Peggy was away on trips and she missed her.

They started off slow. One of Tony's favorite places that offered a late dinner, followed by drinks and dancing in a hidden speakeasy style club in the restaurant's basement. Tony ordered her drinks, rum and coke that was more coke than rum, and when she bitched about it the next time he brought her an amaretto sour. She rolled her eyes but since she liked the drink she didn't say anything. Tony gave her a little bit of space, enough that she could practice her flirting skills, and practice maintaining control over the situation, but she could feel him hovering close by even as he charmed his own girl or two. With her Ohio state driver's license that told the bartender that she was newly twenty-one, from Cleveland, and an organ donor 'Natalie' was able to get two vodka cranberries before Tony announced it was time for him and Natasha to go back to the hotel.

Natasha pouted in the backseat of the limo. "This is not how you party, Tony."

"I don't party for the same reasons you are, Nattie." Tony replies. "You wanted experiences yeah? What's the point if you can't remember anything from the experience? We'll go back out, I promise, Saturday nights are wild."

"You're being annoyingly responsable." Natasha huffled at him.

Tony laughed softly as he put his arm around her and drew her into his side. "Yeah, well, I'm trying something new."

When they got back to the hotel suite they lounged on the sofa with bottles of gatorade and water. Natasha took off her knee high boots and tucked her legs under her as she sat beside her cousin. Tony had his arm along the back of the sofa and was idly playing with the ends of Natasha's hair. "So," He says gently once he sees a bit more clarity in her blue-green eyes. "You wanna tell me what this is all about?"

Natasha sighs and gently shakes her head. "Not really."

"Who said you were young and inexperienced?" Tony gently pushed. He really needed to know what was going on with her, he was worried, and he wanted to help in a more meaningful way then taking her out to party hard.

"Mum." Natasha answered. "That's what she said when I was blaming myself for what happened."

"What happened?" Tony asked, his focus completely on her. He'd been so busy lately, working, inventing, partying, girls, girls, girl, that he'd lost touch with what was happening in Natasha's life and that was starting to really bug him. Clearly something upsetting had happened and he hadn't been there for it. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Natasha sighed and began telling Tony about the older guy she'd met while taking a summer class at the university and how he'd tried to take things further than she'd wanted the night of her homecoming dance. It still bothered her that she'd let herself fall for his charm, that she'd been the silly school girl flattered by the attention of someone older, and that she'd ignored her mother's warnings because of it.

"I'm sorry you had to cross paths with an asshole like that, Nattie." Tony said after hearing her story. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, he managed to keep a cap on his anger. How dare some low life co-ed college asshat disrespect his cousin like that! "Guys who play games like that make me sick." Tony grunts. Natasha gives him a look, aware of his budding reputation. He moves his arm from resting along the back of the sofa to drape it around Natasha's shoulders. "I have fun with women, yeah, but I don't play games like that. I have way too much respect for the women who raised me, and the women in my life that I love, to treat someone else's sister or cousin or daughter or niece like a piece of ass."

Natasha inched closer to Tony, snuggling into his side. She puts her head on his shoulder and drapes her arm across his stomach. She feels him rest his chin on her head and she sighs. "I don't want to be that stupid girl again, Tony."

"Nothin' stupid about you, Nattie." Tony replies. He lifts his head to press a kiss to her hair and then puts his chin back atop her head. "We'll go out tonight and I'll show you how to avoid the creeps, and whose safe to have fun with, but not too much fun, you're under the age of consent in New York."

"I'm also under age for alcohol but you let me drink." Natasha yawned, a braty smirk on her painted lips.

"Getting drunk is one thing, Nattie." Tony says honestly. "Losing your innocence before you're ready is another."

The fact that someone tried to force her to lose that innocence before she was ready burned Tony up inside. Natasha's falls asleep on his shoulder, and when he's sure she's completely out for the court Tony carefully picks her up in his arms and carries her to bed. It's already been turned down so it's easy for him to tuck her feet under the covers before pulling them up over her and tucking her in. She's still in her little black dress, but he isn't going to disturb her trying to get her into pajamas. When he returned to the living room of the suite he picked up his laptop. Natasha shouldn't have given him the douchebag's full name.

They spend the day Saturday, after waking up sometime around one in the afternoon, doing normal hangout stuff. Or as normal as you can get when your godbrother slash cousin is a twenty-one year old billionaire with impulse control issues and a need to please. They had lunch in Central Park, hot dogs and soda, which sounds normal until Tony tells Natasha that the over a foot long hot dog they were sharing cost twenty-three hundred dollars. They make her mothers laugh over the phone with their goofing around when they call to check in on the pair. Then they head to a New York staple and have sundaes that cost a thousand dollars each.

"You're ridiculous." Natasha teases him as she examines the edible gold on her ice cream.

Tony smiles that one smile of his that was meant only for Natasha and shrugs. "I'm rich."

"Same thing." Natasha laughs though she knows that Tony donates just as much if not more money than he spends on frivolous things.

That night Tony keeps his word and takes Natasha to all of the hottest clubs in NYC, but only the ones where he's sure the clientele will be close in age to them, he doesn't want forty year old stock brokers hitting on his little cousin after all. He points out the tools and douchebags and explains their moves, and gives her advice on how to shoot them down in the most humiliating of ways to teach them a lesson. Natasha watches Tony as he flirts and charms, and she's determined to be better at it than he is. At one point during the night they both had their eye on a striking young woman with raven hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. They make a playful bet to see who can get her attention, and Natasha stacks the deck by simply walking up to her and being honest.

"My cousin," She indicated Tony with a nod of her head in his unsuspecting direction, "and I both think you're gorgeous, and made a bet to see which of us could get your attention first."

Tony watched, dumbstruck as the raven haired woman took something out of her purse and wrote on Natasha's hand. When Natasha returned to his side she showed him a phone number written in eyeliner. Because it seemed like Tony had a drink in his hand all night Natasha didn't notice that he wasn't as drunk as he was pretending to be. He wanted to make sure that he could watch over her while she worked through what she needed to by doing this. Natasha however, needed to be carried up to the suite at the end of the night, which was actually more around morning. People were on their way to Sunday services as Tony and Natasha made their way back to the hotel.

While he was getting her something to drink, leaving her to undress and change, he heard a loud thump. Rushing into her room he found her on the floor giggling like crazy, her dancer's legs all tangled up in her pants. "Nattie! Are you alright?"

Natasha giggled. "I think I'm drink."

"Drunk." Tony corrects as he helps her into bed. "You're drunk, Nat."

"Shhhh!" Natasha shushes him while flailing her hands in his face "My moms will hear you."

Tony chuckled. "They're in D.C. Nat. Not even Aunt Peggy's that good."

Natasha narrowed her eyes. "She's sneaky, Tony. She knows things, lots of things, all the things, everything."

"Well for your sake, and your ass's, I hope to hell she doesn't know this." Tony replies as he gives her some advil and a bottle of gatorade. "Drink this."

"How come you're not drink, Tony?" Natasha asks as she takes the pills with the sports drink.

"Drunk, Nat." Tony corrects again. "And I'm just used to it, now go to sleep."

"Ok." Natasha falls back into the pillows. "Hey Tony."

"Yeah Nattie?" Tony replies as he tucks her in.

She suddenly wraps her arms around his neck. "Thank you."

"Anything for you Nattie." Tony tells her. "You know that. For you I'd face the wrath of Aunt Peggy any day if it means helping you feel better."

She kisses his cheek and then falls back into her pillow again. "Love you too, Tony."

After making sure Natasha's ok, Tony goes out to make sure he has what he'll need for her hangover. As he prepares everything he can feel eyes on him and he stops to turn and look at Happy. "What?"

"Nothing." Happy holds up his hand, but he smiles. "It's just, you're different when she's around, boss. I didn't know you had it in you to put someone before yourself."

"Yeah, well," Tony huffs at his friend and bodyguard. "Believe it or not there is someone I love more than myself, and it just so happens to be that kid in there."

"It shows." Happy replies. "Though I have to question the wisdom of letting a sixteen year old party like that. I feel the need to point out the legal mess you put yourself into, not to mention if her parents find out. Your aunt didn't seem the type of parent you want to willingly cross."

"She asked me, Happy." Tony replies easily and shrugs. "She never asks for things. I'm willing to take on the consequences if there are any."

For Natasha, Tony would save the world or burn it down, it all depended on what she needed him to do.


	11. Chapter 11

To Sooth a Broken Heart

Most of her injuries from the Battle of New York have healed, everything but her ribs, because ribs were always slow to heal. But the lacerations, patchwork of bruises that covered her body, the concussion, and her sprained ankle were all healed. It was just her ribs, and of course her broken heart, that still pained Natasha. May's words still haunted her thoughts, "I thought I could do this because I do love you, Natasha, but I can't, I'm sorry, I, I just can't." The phantom warmth of May's parting kiss lingered on Natasha's lips. She couldn't blame May. Natasha had watched and rewatched the footage of the battle, had watched herself come close to death more than once. She could accept that May had been willing to love an agent of SHIELD, but loving an Avenger was just too much. She could live with that, she told herself, what choice did she have. She would have to live with that.

It's why she was now living in Stark Tower and not her apartment in Queens a couple of floors down from May and Peter. Natasha had tried to reach out to May, to find a way to make it work, but in the end she realized she just needed to give May what she wanted. So she moved out. Tony had wanted to give her an entire floor of the massive tower to herself, the one right below his own penthouse, but Natasha insisted just an apartment would be fine. The compromise was that she and Sharon would share the entire floor below the penthouse, two separate apartments with a shared space between them. It was too much space for just Natasha and Goose, she was used to smaller spaces when on her own and sharing larger spaces with her mothers and family, but it would do for now.

Adele played softly in the background while Natasha moved around her kitchen making dinner. Goose watched from the top of the refrigerator with mild interest, the tip of his tail seemingly twitching in time with Hello. Suddenly the music stopped, replaced by a still eerily familiar voice. "Pardon the interruption, Ms. Carter."

Natasha jumped a bit, still not used to the A.I. and still creeped out by how much it sounded like her late uncle. "Yes, Jarvis, what is it?"

"Mr. Stark wishes to see you in his lab at your earliest convenience." The A.I. tells her.

"Thank you Jarvis." Natasha replies. She wonders what Tony could want. He'd been spending a lot of his free time tinkering in his lab, especially when Pepper isn't home, or she's swamped with trying to help rebuild the city. "Jarvis, is Pepper still out of town?"

"She is, Ms. Carter." Jarvis replies. "Ms. Potts will be in Tokyo until Tuesday."

Natasha hums to herself as she moves across her kitchen to get a large bowl from her cabinet. "How long has Tony been in his lab today?"

"Since breakfast." Jarvis answers.

"Thought so." Natasha replies with a shake of her head. "Thank you Jarvis."

Natasha transfers a large portion of the rigatoni she was making to the bowl and grates fresh cheese over it before grabbing forks from the drawer and a six pack from the fridge. Then she heads down to the labs after checking with Jarvis to see which one her cousin was in. Surprisingly, Natasha didn't find Tony in one of the workshops he used to work on his armor. He was in a smaller lab, one he's dedicated to a different project apparently. Like Pepper and Happy, Tony had given Natasha biometric access to his secured labs, so as soon as she stepped up to the door it slid open and she walked in. "Have you eaten?"

Tony looked up from tinkering with something and blinked. "Yes?"

"When?" Natasha asked as she walked over to an empty workbench and set the pasta and beer down.

"Um, this morning?" Tony replies, looking a little dazed, like he'd forgotten how time works. This wasn't uncommon for him, when he was engrossed in something like this he did actually forget how time and the human body worked. Time marched on, and the human body required food and sleep. Luckily the women in his life knew him well and knew how to take care of the clueless genius idiot.

Natasha shakes her head and smiles fondly. "Come and eat while you tell me why you wanted to see me."

Tony's whole face lit up as he set down what he was working on and moved over to the bench Natasha had commandeered. He accepts the fork Natasha is holding out and digs into the pasta with gusto, moaning with pleasure at the homemade Martinelli sauce. "You told me I could make you a new suit."

"I didn't say a suit, Tony." Natasha narrowed her eyes at her cousin as she crossed her arms and glared a warning. "I'm not wearing one of your tin cans."

"It's not an Iron suit." Tony shakes his head as he pulls a small remote from his pocket and presses a button on it.

The suit that was revealed looked similar to Natasha's SHIELD uniform in style and cut. Walking over to the rack the suit is on Natasha reaches out to feel it. It's made of a lightweight, high tech, material of some type that feels similar to fabric. She smiles as she runs a finger along a seam. "Blue isn't really in my color scheme, Tony."

"It has a red setting." Tony says as he walks over to join her, bowl of pasta in hand as he explains. He then begins telling Natasha about the suit and it's abilities, and how the suit works with the new weapons he's made for her. Her gauntlets were a bit more sleek now, and included what Tony was calling her Widow's Sting which was to incompastate, as well as the Widow's Bite which was more of a lethal option. The suit itself could produce a protective shield with an electro-shock discharge, the material was newly created and would give Natasha some protection against bullets and blades.

"And the red setting?" Natasha asks after Tony's explanation.

"Indicates that you're in lethal mode." Tony tells her. "It needs some fine tuning, and I thought we could work on it together." He moves across the room to what looked like a tool rack and pulls open a drawer, revealing two batons. He takes them out and hands them to Natasha.

"Oh, I like these." Natasha says as she gives them a test twirl. They felt as if they were made and balanced just for her, which they most likely were.

"When I'm finished with them they'll also be able to produce an electrical charge." Tony smiles as he adds, "Slam them together at the ends and twist."

Natasha raises an eyebrow and does as he says. She laughs when the batons form a small bow staff. "Oh I really really like these."

They worked together for the rest of the evening over pasta and beer, and then every afternoon for the rest of the week. Saturday morning is spent testing everything one final time for any tweaks that needed to be made to the uniform or weapons before Natasha took the whole kit out into the field. Natasha's smiling by the end of it, happy with the results, but Tony wants to tinker just a bit more so she changes out of the gear and leaves it with him in his lab. Just as she is placing everything on his workbench her phone buzzes with a text message which she checks and her smile grows. "Sharon's on her way into town. She wants to know if we want to go out for dinner and drinks. You down?"

Tony beams, "Sounds good to me, it's been awhile since the three of us have hung out."

Natasha replies to Sharon's text while teasing Tony. "You need to ask Pepper first?"

"No." Tony huffs at her. "I don't need to ask Pepper first." He pouts for a moment and then adds, "I should probably check and make sure she doesn't have plans for us though. Jarvis, get on that."

Jarvis replies affirmatively while Natasha laughs. When Pepper's response is for Tony to have a good time with his cousins he once again beams at Natasha. "Looks like the night belongs to the Carter cousins and their favorite Stark sidekick."

Natasha walks over and kisses Tony's cheek. "Tony, you know damn well you're as much a Carter as Sharon and I."

Tony fakes making a face while trying to hide the blush. "Eww, stop being sappy, Nat."

She smiles at him and then starts towards the door. "We'll work out the details in the group text. See you in a couple of hours."

"Looking forward to it." Tony replies as he makes a few adjustments to Natasha's gauntlets. He gives her enough time to go to whatever part of the tower she was heading towards and then asks Jarvis where she is just to make sure she's nowhere close. Once he's sure that she isn't going to return to the lab he moves to a back corner of the room and opens a concealed door that's locked by his biosignature. "Jarvis, track Nat for me. I want to make a few changes to the IW project."

"Yes Sir, Mr. Stark." Jarvis replies.

Inside the hidden lab is an Iron suit, but it's nothing like any of Tony's Iron Man suits. As Iron Man, Tony is meant to be a tank, but Natasha was anything but. She had presisition and grace, and needed to have a range of motion that Tony didn't, so the armor was more lightweight with thinner armor plating. He used his own mix of lightweight metals, but this was Natasha, so like the Rescue armor he was building for Pepper, Tony had mixed in just a hint of vibranium to add strength and protection. The suit was black in all the places Tony's was red, and red in the places Tony's was gold. It's power source, a new type of reusable energy Tony developed just for these suits, glowed red behind Natasha's hourglass symbol in the suits chest, with a small backup lower down in the same placement as Natasha's belt buckle.

While Tony was working on his secret project Natasha had ventured up to the bar to find Pepper and invite her along, but instead of finding Tony's girlfriend working on the building repairs the tower needed following the battle, she found Pepper making small talk with Thor. Every muscle in Natasha's body tensed up, as if preparing itself for a fight. Making her way over to the pair she demanded, "What's wrong? What's happened? Is it Loki again?"

"Ah! New friend Widow!" Thor says joyfully as he playfully charges towards the redhead.

"Be gentle Thor!" Pepper warns the large blonde man. "Nat is still recovering from her injuries."

Thor reigns in his excitement and gently puts his hand on Natasha's shoulder instead of giving her the crushing hug he'd been intended on. "I am pleased to see you again, friend Widow."

"Um, good to see you too? And just call me Natasha, Thor." Natasha replies, her gaze cutting between Pepper and Thor. "Is everything alright? Is there a problem?"

"No problems, friend Natasha." Thor replies. "Loki has faced Asgardian justice. He has been imprisoned, his magic taken, and he has been thoroughly chastised by our mother for his attempt to rule over Midgard."

At Natasha's look of confusion Pepper said, "Apparently his girlfriend is busy and he was bored, so he took Tony up on the offer to stay here."

"Friend Tony has mentioned your need, friend Natasha." Thor says, his voice full of concern.

Natasha blinks. "My need?"

Thor nods. "You require a lay of rebound, and I have friends who could be of assistance."

Natasha tries really hard not to blush as she looks around Thor and over at Pepper, but seeing the strawberry blonde trying not to laugh just made it worse. What the hell was Tony telling people? Why the hell was he talking about her in the first place? She was going to murder him.

"Fandral is dashing and charming, very handsome." Thor said joviality, a smile on his handsome perfect face. "Hogun is strong, powerful, and rugged. Volstagg is kind hearted and brave, perhaps the best choice to sooth a broken heart." He looked down at Natasha with sympathetic eyes. "They are well known as the Warriors Three, and if you wanted to they would gladly come to you as such."

Did he just offer her what she thinks he's offering her? "Um, Thor…"

"There is also Lady Sif, who is all of those things and more." Thor continues. "She would be a fine match for a great warrior like you."

Natasha stood there blinking. She could see Pepper out of the corner of her eye, the other woman had given up on trying not to laugh. When Thor first started speaking she wasn't sure if he'd understood what Tony had meant by a rebound lay, but once he started describing his friends she knew he totally understood. Thor didn't understand not breaking glasswear when he wanted another drink, but causal sex he gets. She spends a good twenty minutes convincing Thor that while he was sweet to try and help mend her wounded heart, and while she's sure his friends were all good people, pimping out one's friends really wasn't something they did on Earth. Thor seemed to understand. When she picked Sharon up at the airport and told her, the blonde laughed so hard she had tears streaming down her face and she couldn't catch her breath.

The cousins head out for the best steak dinner in New York after the girls convince Tony that they can't just take off and fly to Argentina or Japan for a steak. He does get them the best table in the restaurant they choose and orders the best top shelf whiskey to go with their meals. Natasha notices the way Sharon and Tony are careful in navigating the conversation, avoiding talk of Tony's relationship with Pepper or if Sharon's still dead set on relying on herself when it comes to her sex life. She finds it both annoying and sweet, because while she can understand her cousins desire to take care of her emotional needs, she hates being treated with kid gloves. They spend hours at the restaurant, talking, eating, drinking and enjoying each other's company before moving on to a private bar where they could continue their evening out without worrying someone might notice Tony. He and Jarvis had developed a program that would scrub Natasha's image from all media in an attempt to conceal her true identity. It wouldn't do her or anyone she loved any good for the world to discover the infamous Black Widow was Natasha Carter from Brooklyn. No one knew Sharon, she wasn't in the public eye at all. But Tony, Tony had made a point of outting himself as Iron Man. In hindsight, maybe not his best idea ever.

Sometime around two a.m. as the trio piles into the back of Tony's limo more than a little drunk, one of them, they're not sure which one, mentions ice cream. There aren't any places open to get ice cream at that time of night, Sharon points out, and they all pout until Natasha suddenly perks up. "Ma keeps gelato in the freezer!"

It's nearly three in the morning when Peggy is startled out of her sleep. It takes her a moment to realize why, that there was someone in her home. Extracting herself carefully from her bed so she wouldn't wake Angie, she quietly retrieves her hidden pistol and makes her way downstairs. There are noises coming from the kitchen, so she makes her way towards the back of her home, pistol ready. It isn't until she hears voices, slurred but familiar voices, that she relaxes and lowers her weapon.

"I really do love her." Natasha says as she picks at the label on her gatorade bottle. She was sitting at her mothers' kitchen table with Sharon on one side of her and Tony on the other. "I really thought maybe, ya know, maybe, I'd finally found that little sliver of something special, ya know, just a tiny little piece of something like my moms have."

"We're sorry, Nattie." Sharon says softly as she leans against Natasha, putting her head on her cousin's shoulder.

"Thought May was made of stronger stuff." Tony hiccuped as he poured bright blue gatorade over his gelato and began drinking it like a float. "You need to find you someone like Pepper. Someone strong enough to handle your shit, but tough enough to make you handle it yourself too. Like the way Aunt Angie does with Aunt Peggy. Yeap, Pepper, she's like that. Yeap. I'mma marry her." He nods as if that's the most brilliant idea he's ever had. "That's what you need Nattie-cat, you need a woman like Pepper or Aunt Angie."

"I thought I had." Natasha whispered before she let her head hit the table with a loud thunk.

Sharon hissed. "Oh that's gonna leave a mark."

Peggy peaks around the corner and sees all three of her children, each clearly inebriated, gathered around her table with bottles of sports drinks, water, and pints of gelato. She can't find it in her to be cross with them for showing up at this ungodly hour pissed off their asses, because it's clear that they've been trying to ease Natasha's current heartache. So Peggy turns around and just as stealthy heads back upstairs. Slipping back into bed beside her wife Peggy allows herself a few more hours of sleep. When she and Angie get up for the day she walks over to Natasha's bedroom door.

"English?" Angie asks simply when she sees her wife heading in the wrong direction from the stairs.

"The children were here earlier." Peggy explains as she gently turns the knob on Natasha's door. "I want to see if they stayed."

Angie blinked and followed her wife. When Peggy carefully pushed opened Natasha's door sure enough they found their girls passed out in Natasha's bed, pinkies locked together and everything. "What the…"

Peggy hummed softly. "I don't see Anthony. I hope the girls didn't leave him passed out under the kitchen table."

"Guest room?" Angie offers, and once again follows her wife as they move down the hall. "You gonna explain why the kids are here, English?"

Peggy explains what happened several hours earlier while opening the guest room door to find Tony passed out across the top of the still made bed. Satisfied that her drunk children had done the smart thing and stayed put, Peggy finally headed towards the stairs. "As hard as Nat tries to pretend that she isn't hurting, we all know she's in pain. Anthony and Sharon must have taken her out last night, they all had too much to drink, and came home afterwards."

"I hate seeing her so broken up like this, English." Angie sighs as she and her wife make their way to their kitchen where she puts on a pot of coffee while Peggy fetches the morning papers. Once Peggy has rejoined her she adds, "I wish you would let me go talk to May."

"Stay out of it, Angela." Peggy warns sternly.

Angie groans and rolls her eyes at Peggy's tone. "I just think I can give her a different perspective on the whole loving someone in a dangerous line of work thing."

"If Natasha and May are meant to be together long term then they will have to work this out for themselves, darling." Peggy tells her wife yet again as she walks up behind Angie and slides her arms around her waist. "I mean it Angie, stay out of it." Peggy hugs Angie, kisses her temple, and then as she moves away lands a swat to her rear end, making the other woman yelp. "Hangover breakfast for the children?"

"You start the pancakes, I'll get the bacon and sausage." Angie replies with a pout as she makes a show of rubbing where Peggy had smacked.

By the time Natasha stumbles into the kitchen looking like death warmed over the table is laid out with pancakes, eggs, breakfast meats, fruit, toast, tea, coffee, and juice. At first the smell of it all churns her stomach, and she's on the verge of dashing off to the toilet, but then she finds a mug of peppermint tea placed in her hands and after several sips she's feeling and looking a little less green. "Thanks."

Peggy smiles warmly as she brushes her daughter's messy red locks off her face. "Did you at least drink them both under the table?"

Natasha snorts, and then moans because her head is pounding and snorting felt like setting off dynamite in a cave. "Close to it."

"That's my girl." Peggy replies as she pulls Natasha into her arms for a morning cuddle.

Sharon's the next one down, though she does end up dashing off for the downstairs bathroom before anyone has the chance to give her something to settle her stomach. When Tony finally makes it to the kitchen table he's smiling and chipper, and the girls glare at him from where they're sat with their heads on Peggy's shoulders.

"What?" Tony asks them as he pours himself a cup of coffee and takes a seat beside Angie.

"How are you not hungover?" Sharon's voice is laced with annoyance and a touch of anger.

Tony shrugs as he sips his coffee before setting it down and reaching for the serving spoon in the bowl of scrambled eggs. "Higher tolerance for heavy drinking? I was getting drunk while you two were still in plaid skirts and pigtails."

"Do we need to have another chat about hereditary addiction, Anthony?" Peggy asks her godson while trying to get her daughter and niece to eat something.

"No ma'am." Tony replies with a shake of his head.

It takes a little more coaxing by both Peggy and Angie, but the girls do give in and start to slowly fill their bellies. Soon they're feeling a bit more functional and willing to engage in the conversation. At one point Natasha recalls something from the day before and points her butter and jam coated butter knife at Tony and says, "Will you please stop telling everyone I need to have rebound sex. Thor offered up his Asgardian friends like he was asking me if I'd like to choose a donut or six." She crinkled her nose as she added, "He even said I could have them all at once if I wanted too."

"And you didn't say yes?" Tony looked as if she'd lost her mind.

"I'm not interested in some Asgardian orgy, Tony!" Natasha huffs.

"If they look like Thor can you hook me up?" Sharon asks, smirking.

Natasha picked up an end piece of her sausage link as if to throw it at her cousin, Sharon scooped up eggs onto her fork ready to retaliate, and that's when Peggy finally spoke up, clearing her throat to get their attention. "Enough." Her voice was gentle but stern, clearly a soft warning. "Your noses all still fit rather well into corners you know, age be damned." The girls both blushed, and ducked their heads like scolded children while Tony snickered. "I was talking to you as well, Anthony."

"Sorry Aunt Peg." Tony responds with a pout.

It's decided, by Angie, that since it was Sunday the three would stay the day and they would have a family dinner. She told Tony it would be alright if he invited Pepper, and Tony checked with Natasha to make sure she would be ok with that. Natasha rolled her eyes and told him to stop being stupid. If he did in fact want to marry her, Natasha pointed out while she, Tony, and Sharon cleaned up the kitchen for her mothers, then Pepper was going to be family, hell she already was.

"That's cool of you to say, Nattie." Tony said as he took a pan from her to dry and put away. "Especially since it was Pep who called Aunt Peggy and told her about the positioning secret."

Natasha's eyes went wide. "That was Pepper!?"

Tony nodded, his eyes slightly wide. He'd assumed Natasha had worked that out for herself a long time ago. Shit!

"I love Pepper, Tony, I do." Natasha grumbled. "But snitches get stitches."

Of course there was no way her mothers were actually going to let Natasha hurt Pepper. They could not however stop her from lurking at the top of the stairs where she waited for the strawberry blonde to walk into the house, and then shoot her right between the eyes with a Nerf dart from a Nerf sniper rifle she and Clint had built.

Pepper was confused, Tony had gasped. "Nat! That's not fair!"

"Stay out of it Tony." Natasha said from her perch. "Tattletales have to defend themselves, alone, in Carter Nerf Wars. You're either on my side or you keep score. Pep's on her own."

Since he was in town Clint had been invited over as well. He gave Pepper a sheepish apologetic grin as he offered her a Nerf gun. "The rules are simple. One, if you get tagged out of sight of the scorekeeper, be honest about it and call it out. Two, the kitchen, the study, and the master bedroom are off limits. Three, don't break anything, everyone gets a time out if you break something and no dessert, so seriously, don't break shit. Four, the armory,"

"He means the dining room." Sharon calls out from the living room where she stands with a Nerf rifle, ready and waiting.

"Is neutral ground." Clint continues. "No shooting anyone who's there getting ammo or a new weapon. And last but not least, the game ends when Mrs. C has had enough and puts an end to it. The winning team normally gets extra dessert, but since this is about you being a snitch…"

"Excuse me?" Pepper blinked, still very confused by the whole thing and even more so now.

"You called my Mum and snitched about the palladium poisoning." Natasha said as she shot Pepper from the hallway. No one had noticed her come downstairs.

"Those don't count Nat!" Tony huffed at her.

"If you can beat us, then all is forgiven and there's no repercussions." Clint continues once again. "If not, then Nat and Tony get your dessert and you have to wear a snitches get stitches t-shirt to the next family dinner."

Pepper blinked, her gaze darting between Natasha, Sharon, and Clint who were all armed with Nerf weapons, and Tony who was standing beside her shaking his head. "Are they serious?"

"Carter Nerf Wars are very serious." Tony said with a nod.

"Alright then." Pepper says as she slips out of her heels. "How do we get started?"

"We gather in the living room." Tony tells her as everyone moves into the living room. "When I say go, you all take off running while I count to thirty. Then it's game on."

Ten minutes into the game Angie is shaking her head as she listens to the noise filling their home. She's sitting at the kitchen table watching Peggy as she bends over to check on the roast in the oven. "Three of them are trained spies. How are they louder than when they were kids?" She laughs at the sound of childish fun being had by people who like to proclaim their adulthood on a regular basis and then asks, "How long are you going to let it go on for, English?"

Somewhere close by there's a squeal, Pepper's, followed by a boisterous laugh, Natasha's. Peggy smiles as she closes the oven and turns to look at her wife. "Haven't heard her laugh in awhile, so I think a little longer if that's alright?"

Angie nods her agreement. It was nice to hear Natasha laughing happily again.

Peggy lets the kids play for a good thirty minutes before she walks into the dining room and picks up one of the Nerf pistols and goes on the hunt. Pepper is obviously the first one she finds. Peggy shoots her with a foam dart right in the chest, and the look of surprise on Pepper's face makes her laugh. "It's how I end the game, dear." She explains. "Once I've shot you, you put your weapons down on the floor and hands up in surrender."

Clint's next. Peggy's dart hits him right in the temple, and when he sees it's her who shot him he instantly puts his weapons on the ground and raises his hands in the air. She tags Sharon next, right in the back of her shoulder. Sharon spins around, firing a shot, tagging Peggy back, which made the older woman grin as she shoots her in the chest. Sharon, like the other two, puts her weapons down and hands up.

Natasha however isn't going down without a fight. Peggy had told them when they were little, when these wars first started, that if one of them could tag her six times before she shot them in the chest or the head, she would take them to the toy store and let them pick anything they wanted. Looking back, Peggy really shouldn't have been so surprised when all three of her children followed in her footsteps in one way or another. Natasha got close, but she'd miscalculated when she thought Peggy was out of darts. With a triumphant smile Natasha went to take her last two shots at her Mum, but Peggy pulled a smaller pistol from her waistband and tagged Natasha in the chest, twice.

"Almost poppet." Peggy said with a soft laugh as she watched her daughter pout.

"One of these days, Mummy." Natasha replies.

"Perhaps my love." Peggy said as she walked over and kissed her daughter's cheek.

Of course Pepper hadn't stood a chance which is why Angie gave her dessert at the end of dinner anyway. Natasha didn't even care. She'd had such a good day with her family, it had felt so good to laugh and be stupid with her cousins, she was just greatful to have had the day to feel good again. Yeah, she had started picturing a future with May, and while it seemed that wasn't going to happen now, at least she knew she would always have her family in her future.


End file.
